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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 











A MILLION A MONTH 




BY 






A MILLIONAIRE 






(F. W. MOORE) 






4, 






MCMV 
CONTINENTAL PUBLISHING CO. 

24-26 Murray Street, New York 











LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Copies Received 

•JA* 23 J906 

Copyright Entri 
CLASS ^t XXc. No. 

/ J o n IS 

COPY B. 







AW 



COPYRIGHT, 1905, BY 

Continental Publishing Cot, 

NEW YORK. 



PREFACE. 

THIS book is written to proclaim two funda- 
mental laws : First, that the workingman 
is the director of his own enormous power, 
and, second, that he is the leader of his so-called lead- 
ers. And, although the author has a sincere feeling 
of respect for that great patriot, Thomas Jefferson, he 
as sincerely believes that these two great laws mark 
an age of advancement beyond JefTersonian ideals. 

These laws point with axiomatic force to that 
higher democracy of the near future, when, rising 
to our full stature and dignity as a nation, we shall 
show a respect for labor, alone exemplified by a fair 
proportion of workingmen in the halls of legislation. 

Thus, sharp, crisp and clear these laws indicate the 
course toward a prosperity worthy the name, through 
means perfectly normal and just, by which poverty 
must and shall be practically banished forever. 

Indeed, we have simply formulated the foundation 
principle of our national endurance, the essential ele- 
ment of our patriotism, for, either we must repudiate 
every effort of our forefathers to get rid of kings and 
their satellites, — only less harmful than our own mone- 
tary kings with their bought-up legislatures, — or else 
we must advance toward a practical democracy. 

For a century we have talked about democracy, — 
why not try it? For a century we have experimented 

3 



PREFACE. 



with aristocracy, — are we satisfied? For a century 
democracy has stood still in the emblazoned glory of 
Revolutionary achievement. Is it because halls of leg- 
islation are too sacred for workingmen to tread there- 
in? Would the purity of our legislators be sullied 
by association, upon equal terms, with men of toil? 
We have tested a government for the people ; is it not 
time to inaugurate a government by the people? 

Through the kindling enthusiasm of a mighty na- 
tion for the rights of the masses we may discern a 
plan for establishing a new democracy, the foundation 
of which is already laid in general knowledge and in- 
telligence. While to subsidize the press, to buy ora- 
tors, to bribe politicians, to buy voters, is the popular 
political plan, with a cause that God Almighty favors, 
the plan may be as simple as Penn's treaty with the 
Indians — and as effective : honest work by honest men 
for an honest cause. 

The seriousness of our subject can only be meas- 
ured by the poverty of millions in this most wealthy 
nation; but it is the endeavor of the author to main- 
tain a hopeful and even jocular mood in keeping with 
our comfortable title, which is typical of the time and 
elastic enough to include everything from the "labor 
problem" to the ownership of the universe ! 

Within the limits of our preface we may hint at 
both proof and utility of the laws above stated, and 
present a few plain facts for the attention of the reader. 

A few questions may clear the subject : Is the man 
opposed to the majority, or the man who the majority 
approves, elected? — then who controls, the man or the 



PR EFACE. 5 

people? Must not an editor's views coincide with 
those of his subscribers in order to keep them? — if 
so, who controls ? Is not a firm belief in the ruler the 
foundation of effective rulership? — then, who^in fact, 
rules ? 

From the standpoint of the great man we might 
ask: Did ever a hero live without a typical environ- 
ment to which he owed his greatness ? Was the Civil- 
War the work of Lincoln, or the people ? Does Rocke- 
feller make the nation, or the nation Rockefeller? 

As to the near future, which determines utility, can 
the most conservative deny the trend of our literature 
or our national education in economics? Is not the 
sense of justice the guiding star of this educational 
movement? And can its demands be delayed any 
more than the tides of the ocean ? 

Our government is practically a legal collusion with 
wealth, while it ought to be a bulwark of the many 
against the exactions, usurpations and tyrannies of the 
few. Great changes must come ; shall they come 
peaceably? — without question, if these laws, the major 
premis of this book, are given the prominence and con- 
sideration their truth and force demand. 

Conceive these laws as true, then it is the laborer 
who controls, and it is he who needs to be convinced, 
— not the. rich, the great, kings or presidents, but the 
laborer himself, the workingman, whose number is 
legion, who seldom achieves eighteen dollars a week, 
with a scattering few who may possibly receive twice 
that in wages — convinced of what? — convinced of his 
own power, ability and directive force. 



PREFACE. 



That is all, and that means peace, for the working- 
man, instead of blaming leader, magnate, or party, 
will hold himself responsible, appreciating his own 
mastership, and that he must dictate to his own ad- 
vantage ; — then shall we have made a progress com- 
parable to that of the recognition of the rotundity of 
the earth. 

Turning to different avenues of use: Considering 
socialism either in part or whole as true, then these 
laws would prove its most effective aid, while their 
most potent influence would be to maintain that in- 
dividual freedom which is claimed for socialism as its 
final result. 

The trades unions in their splendid, practical and 
effectual fight for the rights of labor should breathe 
these laws into their very being as expressive not 
merely of the dignity of labor, but, once crystalized 
into public sentiment, neither armies nor combinations 
of armies would begin to touch their practical force 
in raising wages. 

The Single Taxer, tracing all wrongs to the very 
foundation of existence, the land itself, would con- 
tinue economic education with renewed vigor in a 
higher appreciation of those for whom he is working, 
by recognizing the merit of these laws. 

To the "municipal ownership" movement these laws 
should prove effectual in clearing the way for practical 
work by a cogent and just statement of an inalienable 
prerogative. The status of the workingman is that of 
master, not servant, of great corporations; they are 
creations of his energy, intelligence and sober industry ; 



PREFACE. 7 

his demands dictate their existence ; and his centuries- 
old worship of position and wealth finds concrete ex- 
pression in laws that so far have kept from him the 
profits he justly deserves as wages. 

When it is remembered that there are two million 
men out of work, two million children at work from 
five to fourteen years of age ; when we can see with 
our own eyes, if we have a mind to, wretched over- 
crowded tenements in our great cities — whole armies 
of people who might indeed be glad to change their 
condition for the comforts of the penitentiary; when 
we see little children brought into this world under 
such awful conditions that often their own mothers 
murder them to save them from a life of destitution 
and crime; when we see women, who, under fair and 
just conditions, would be the light of God's beautiful 
world, degraded and speedily marching to death; 
when we see little children fast replenishing great 
armies of criminals ; when men, women and children 
live where crime is a virtue and virtue a crime — then, 
then, shall we not cry out from the very depths of our 
soul, "Oh, God, pity the world !" 

When from this picture we lift our eyes to the gov- 
ernment in hope of relief we behold an army of loby- 
ists moving heaven and earth for greed; the taint of 
bribery in some form reaching even to the sacred pre- 
cincts of the presidential office; whole congresses at 
the nod and beck of the Almighty Dollar ; the govern- 
ment sold body and soul to wealth — the poor man 
savagely cast away by those whom he has given his 
life-blood to support. 



PREFACE. 



The dream of our forefathers has become a night- 
mare ; democracy has been sold for a mess of pottage, 
— sound the requiem of the republic! 

Let us turn to socialism, trades unionism, and the 
Single Tax, — all grandly righting for human rights — 
the spirit of liberty still lives. Turn to the newspaper, 
the poor man's college, the fear only of tyrants, the 
blessing of Christendom ! — it is with and of the work- 
ingman ; while steam and electricity and the telephone 
are binding us together as one man for a great fight. 
Yes, a fight to which Togo's defeat of Rojestvensky 
is but the fly on the elephant. 

The march has begun! — "municipal ownership" is 
gaining ground, our control of the railroads must 
come; even the Standard Oil feels the sharp repulse 
to grasping wealth in Kansas — the ball is starting to 
roll, — and the workingman is rolling it. 

"A Million a Month by a Millionaire." Do you not 
hear that ring from page to page of this book? 'Tis 
the trumpet call of Freedom as "adown the shadowy 
halls of time" we hear the reverberating sound of the 
voice of martyrs calling to mankind to stand for prin- 
ciple, oppose the usurpation of monarchs, and, to-day, 
to advance beyond the barbarian condition of million- 
aire kings. 

Were this book a fiery declaration of war with 
China, Russia, Germany or England, what a firment 
it would create, what billions we would spend to mur- 
der our fellowmen. It stands not for war, the world's 
weakness, but for peace, its strength, and propounds 
a word of truth. But truth needs as bold warriors 



PREFACE. 



as ever fell on the field of battle, as ever cried, "Don't 
give up the ship !" or "We've not begun to fight yet V 
Copernicus on his death-bed, reading the sheets of his 
great book, which death alone would allow him to 
publish, or Columbus, ragged, wretched and forlorn, 
begging his way, give some idea of the hardships 
truth has to encounter. 

In this brief introduction to the most important 
problem of our century, we have noted the necessity 
for and the hope of a great change, in the practical 
accomplishment of which the laws we have mentioned 
should prove efficient. Unknown, they are useless ; 
nobly upheld and made prominent by men and women 
who dare to believe in democracy, not merely in name 
but in fact, and who shall say that billions on billions 
may not be their value? 

Thus of right, as a millionaire, — if there is such a 
right, — the author takes pleasure in placing before the 
reader the only book in the world — where there ought 
to be thousands — to make the simple declaration, based 
upon his directive power, that the voice of the work- 
ingman must be heard in our halls of legislation so that 
his practical experience may be effective in moulding 
those vast changes for better conditions which a twen- 
tieth century civilization is impatiently demanding. 



A Million a Month 

By a Millionaire. 



I 



INDIGENCE VERSUS OPULENCE. 

WHETHER we write as Croesus in his cas- 
tle or as Diogenes in his tub, facts are 
facts — the tenement house with less of 
comfort than the abode of Esquimaux, Hotentot, or 
Zulu, confronts us side by side with castles of Rocke- 
feller, Gould or Vanderbilt that Rome in the height 
of her opulence might have envied. 

THE HEIGHT AND THE DEPTH. 

Thus, as the facets of the diamond of life's experi- 
ence must exhibit every phase of this incongruity, our 
illustrations shall be drawn from fields most ample. 
A common man — who has a better title? — to-day, in 
Heaven ; to-morrow, in the dungeons of night ; — he 



A -COMMON MAN. 



passes through torments, — but, living, subdues, con- 
quers, and the world lies at his feet. 

As we tell the story of this "common man" we shall 
toss into a potpouri of incident and anecdote some 
spice of argument, some extract perchance of truth, 
a pleasant flavoring of good-will, and from the whole 
may the aroma of good-fellowship arise. 

While depicting incident, accident or circumstance 
that make men worth a million a month, shall not the 
author gain courage for his task by summering among 
the mountain peaks of the Himalayas, or wintering in 
the flowery glades of Florida ? 

Our story is written in the Pyramids, as under the 
lash of the master the workingman toiled to his death ; 
it is written in the great East River Bridge, and the 
caisson underneath the piers thereof; it is written in 
the railroads and mighty ships, almost large enough 
to box the Pyramids in. What the workingman hath 
done need no man look far to see. 

NOT INEXPLICABLE. 

This the workingman's world ; he guides it, he has his 
way ! His reward ? Widespread intelligence shall bring 
that. Swifter than the change of man-made inventions 
shall be that of man-made laws to enable the laborer 
to keep his millions. How unchristian in a Chris- 
tian age that he should wait for Christian conditions! 



POOR MAN'S HERE— SO WAS THE SLAVE. 13 

— and he has built a world ! Ah ! sad case, to build to 
die, to live to work, for work, by work — and that is all. 
Yet he seems to care to live. Queer, isn't it ? God be 
praised for the work he's done, but what a wretched 
shame that he didn't get his own ! He's here ! and he's 
been here throughout the history of the world — civ- 
ilized world ; savage, too ; though savages being all 
pretty poor together, we might call them all rich to- 
gether; at any rate, it mitigates the suffering to have 
lots of company, and nobody worse off than we are. 
But civilized man being a worse barbarian than the 
savages, worse differences ! — and so poverty and wealth 
differ as mountains differ from deep caverns. 

A HEARTY WORLD. 

But the world slides along ; it doesn't make a mite of 
difference to it! — it turns on its axis just the same, 
whether we have axes to grind or not. Excuse pun, 
though, as the world is a big one, it may not object. 
Why, if we could take a composite — as it is called — or 
a photograph that included all the people of the world, 
big and little, babies and all, don't you think we could 
trace a smile in it? I guess we could, and see a 
healthy human being behind that smile. 

Yes, measure the world by its laughter! In good- 
humor it performs its daily task. Ever advancing, it 
solves its destiny by its own good work. How gener- 



i 4 "A MAN WHO DOES HIS OWN THINKING." 

ously it divides its last crust with the rich, — forgiving, 
forgetting, forgotten! 

How some people like to consider that such thoughts 
are but the ramblings of a visionary mind, utterly un- 
tenable and absurd; and forgetting the great round 
world in the comforts of their own little flat world, how 
readily they declare, " the author at the very least is 
a crank ; if I had the ruling of things, I'd put such a 
fellow in a ' deep, dark dungeon/ where he might try 
the effect of his writings on the rats and mice, and 
leave his fellowman in peace ! " Well said ! 

The only trouble with such wild thoughts as these is 
that they are true, and surely you are not looking for 
truth only in the wise ones of the world. Look you to 
babes for that, to those never heard of — aye, even to 
the crank. 

time's conundrum. 

Yes, to the crank — to the crank in all ages — " a 
wasted life," say the sages of his time, as he searches 
for truth for the love of truth. But after-ages plant 
their feet on the practically successful and say, " Meas- 
ure no soul by a pennyweight; for out of adversity 
hath come the prize of the world." 

I opine, even a simple-hearted millionaire deserves 
attention after such a Socraticism ! 

And so, my friends, I am going to write 'The Story 



UNIVERSAL ACQUAINTANCE. 15 

of a Nation," and hope it may entertain you as we ad- 
vocate the cause of the ages. While a variety of ex- 
periences may afford entertainment by their recital, and 
have much to do with opening our eyes to truths dis- 
tributed among many, but which few have amassed to- 
gether, yet I hope to make such incidents but the spice 
to the more solid repast I shall endeavor to set before 
the reader. 

But how strange that our experiences are interesting 
to each other! — away, alone — hidden from sight in 
the great city of houses and of business, unacquainted, 
unfamiliar. Yet it makes no difference ! Our lives run 
in similar channels. About five hundred words con- 
stitute the best part of our general vocabulary: you 
must say the same things I do, and we think the same 
thoughts together. 

" WHO WOULD BE A KING, LADS, WHEN A BEGGAR LIVES 

SO WELL ? " 

And then how nearly we are in perfect unison with- 
out any words at all ; and when we are hurt, feel, each 
and all of us, about the same. Every day we — all to- 
gether, the whole world over, rich and poor, kings, 
pope, bishops, and people — know each other through 
pain, sadness, worry, or by happy and genial exercise of 
our faculties — we are one, and have nothing new to tell. 

Yet each experience is new — is there nothing new 



16 END OF THE WORLD! 

under the sun? More true is it, there is nothing old 
under the sun — even the rocks change from day to day ! 
There is nothing trite about a new cut, or a hurt, or 
sore. Nothing is trite about my whole life-experience 
any more than yours — to us it is new, and every day it 
is new. This hour is the latest, the newest, and the 
final hour for the entire universe, whether for one 
world or ten millions of worlds, for spirits and men — 
a brand-new hour in the eternities of time ! 

Our entire lives are new lives, and in their differ- 
ences in quantity, kind, and quality of experience we 
find ourselves interesting to each other. You may 
study business ; I may study alone other lines. I may 
have had a natural inclination to investigate the whys 
and wherefores of my surroundings, and thus have ac- 
cumulated a great deal of material that you had hardly 
thought of. 

" SEEKING HIS FORTUNE/' 

As to a start in life: what start does a poor boy 
usually have? We can all answer that — all who are 
poor, or who started poor. When one reflects that 
about two per cent, of the population own about one- 
half of our wealth, — a reasonable estimate probably, — 
it seems as if a good many could say what sort of a 
start a poor boy has. 

But there are boys and boys. Some think a 



WOULD YOU BE A BOY AGAIN? 17 

good deal, and some read a good deal. Some boys 
naturally take to trades, and some don't. And, let us 
never forget, most boys have a good appetite. We had 
a terrible appetite, and were great at forgetting every- 
thing, to think about something else. The wonder was, 
we were not lazy, but, after all, what healthy boy is 
lazy? A boy may not like to do just what you want 
him to, but he will work like a slave when at play, and 
hard play is a form of physical exertion — it would be 
work to some, while work is play to others. Ah, many 
a boy is a man full-grown! 

A PLEASANT JOURNEY TO YOU ! 

Adown the avenues of time we shall accompany the 
reader, taking him into our confidence, that we may be- 
come thoroughly acquainted and mutual sharers of a 
great truth. Besides the usefulness of practical illus- 
tration, our problem is so intimately connected with 
human nature, that a mutual feeling will help its com- 
prehension. Anon, the boy again. 

Our province was to be very good, obey the teacher, 
be his or her favorite, study hard, make progress 
slowly, and feel in duty bound to do our part when so 
much of sacrifice was required to give us a proper 
knowledge and studious ways : some three years, all 
told in school, which leaves a good many years out of 
school, even in boyhood days. 
2 



18 THE " FIRST CRUSADE." 

One school vacation I succeeded in making seventy- 
five dollars in a work opposed to my refined tastes, so 
highly developed even in babyhood that a little bird, no 
doubt to become better acquainted, flew down from its 
nest in a Black Haws tree, and, lighting with easy fa- 
miliarity on my head, sent me crying into the house. 
Meteorologically speaking, seeing the moving clouds, I 
called to my mother, " The sky is running away ! " 

I persisted at the uncongenial pursuit, though my 
courage was sometimes sorely tested, and I had to push 
myself a good deal to keep at it ; still, if one makes a 
little money, it is a wonderful incentive. And a boy 
who doesn't mind hard, rough roads, or muddy, rainy 
days, will stand much in the way of harsh looks from 
people, and the greater imaginative harsh looks that he 
doesn't see, if his sense of duty is strong. And the 
luxurious feeling of having done one's duty is as great 
to a boy as to a man — the struggle conquered, the ter- 
ror overcome, and then to relate the victory ! 

BIG GUNS OR LITTLE GUNS. 

Where's your battle that has more to it? Why the 
struggles of life are a thousand-fold greater than any 
battle that was ever fought. Your generals and your 
big men of war think they have performed your great 
deeds ; but your little toddling youngster, selling his 
newspapers on some cold, rainy, or frosty day — to say 



" RAH ! RAH ! RAH ! YALE ! "—THE START. 19 

nothing of icy winter — can tell you of victories hidden 
in his little breast that would make the greatest war- 
rior ashamed of himself. And what is his reward? 
Not the pomp and panoply of war, not the applause of 
the multitude, only a kind word or a gentle caress. 

And so life marched on ; but there are incidents. 
What is it to go to school and then to college, playing 
life for so many years that real life is an unknown 
quantity, and some of its best lessons can be obtained 
only in a second-hand way. Your little boy, not too 
hard-pressed by the world's meanness, has the chance 
of a man's training, with experiences that cling to him 
like welded iron as long as life lasts. Not too hard, no : 
that is weakness, decay, ruin; but also not too easy: 
that, if possible, is worse. 

THE PLOT THICKENS! 

But it takes tests to make us what we are, either for 
good or bad. Here was a little one, let us remark, 
with something like pride, and who knows but with 
just a little streak of vanity. Turning ten, a baby boy, 
but manful, too; times press hard, and then a little 
experience will do him good, even though hard to all 
concerned. Let him go alone, equipped with ticket and 
full directions, five or six hundred miles on the cars, 
and work for a kinsman out West. 

Did you ever work for a kinsman? Well, if you did 



20 A MISFIT. 

you do not want to do so again. There seems to be 
something wrong about it, somehow or other. Maybe 
the Lord never intended that we should be so unequally 
provided for that you or I should work for a kinsman. 
But, then, this kinsman was just, careful, and never 
asked any one to work harder than he did himself ; but 
for that there was a good reason : no one could work 
any harder. 

But how could he appreciate the feelings, to say 
nothing of the failings, of a little imaginative boy of 
eleven years, to whom the great wide world was great 
indeed ; who was honest, trusting, confiding, and gen- 
erous. Whew ! it was a cold dose and no mistake — 
that's what you go through when you are poor, and 
when this old world is going to knock the bow-wows 
out of you, or know the reason why. 
not at home! 

It is curious how the little things stick in a child's 
mind, especially after having taken such a trip, with all 
its exciting conditions. The first thing I remember, is, 
that I was twitted with not knowing quite as much as a 
country boy, because I either placed the gate-pin on 
the wrong side of the gate, or tried to fasten it on the 
wrong side. It affected me because it was the first 
thing, whereas I desired the home-treatment for lack of 
knowledge, which was always of a kindly, helpful 
nature. 



TICKETS, PLEASE! 21 

But I may well be excused for being nervous at 
first, and not remembering the pleasant things. In 
going out there I had lost my ticket. That was while 
passing through Pittsburg — about half-way on my 
journey. All I know is, that I was almost asleep when 
I reached Pittsburg and my ticket was gone ! 

But you may be sure I went through like a posted 
letter. The conductor knew he had punched my ticket, 
and with the good nature that is in all men if you will 
only look for it, he spoke to the next conductor. And I 
expect he spoke to the next, and so on, of which more 
than the first I knew nothing ; so I went ahead. 

all change! 

I remember the second conductor asking me to look 
for the ticket ; but it was lost. Then I remember ask- 
ing often and often and often of some one in the car as 
to the time, being very much afraid I would go past 
the right station. 

Then I remember so well the sounds of the hammers 
" blow on blow " testing the wheels at midnight, while 
waiting sometime to transfer at Pittsburg; and the 
smell of the soft coal — just as if it were yester- 
day. 

Returning, a year later, some gentleman took an 
interest in me and helped me to transfer at Pittsburg. 
Of course, I was not provided with much money, and, 



22 KLONDIKE NOWHERE. 

arriving in New York, a cabman took me in charge, 
and I entered his vehicle, to be taken across the city. 
But, terrible to relate, he wanted to charge me one 
whole dollar for that trip. That I could not stand, and 
I cried as I got out the cab; but I kept my precious 
dollar. Then I went to some old candy woman (gen- 
erosity, thy name is poverty!) and, with the aid of her 
boy, I managed to reach Fulton Ferry all right. 

But, alack ! I am ahead of my story ! Why, before 
that, a long while, that eleven-year old boy had traveled 
alone. And now, come to think about it, I expect if he 
had never traveled alone up to that time, no one would 
have bravely trusted him to make such a long trip. 

OFF FOR BOSTON. 

You know the old Bristol steamboat that was owned 
or built or controlled by the notable Jim Fisk, the gay 
young man who made eleven million dollars with Jay 
Gould in one day, we still keeping the record of the 
day as Black Friday ! And what a picture he cut driv- 
ing down Wall Street with his four-in-hand, or maybe 
it was six ! 

Well, on that boat, going to Boston, way back some- 
where about the age of seven, maybe eight, you could 
have seen me wandering about, — as likely as not taking 
a wistful look at the cook and at the big and wonderful 
cooking machinery. And that cook, what do you 



A WARM-HEARTED COOK. 23 

think ? Now this isn't an Aladdin story, with his won- 
derful lamp. That cook — like the goodnatured people 
scattered broadcast the world over, if we had only the 
wit to find them — just comforted me to the very last 
ebb of comfort, by taking me in and giving me a first- 
rate supper — it was prime ! 

If that wasn't something to remember as long as one 
lives, I don't know what is. It's these little things that 
are the real ones worth remembering. That is all I re- 
member about that early trip to Boston, on that mag- 
nificent steamer. And that is enough to remember. 

That good cook never received any reward, except a 
gentler heart and a nobler soul for the deed. But the 
goodness in that deed, my friend, was as good as in 
Lincoln's signing the Emancipation Proclamation : it is 
not the size of an act that makes it good, it is the 
quality in it. 

THE BREEZY WEST. 

We can go back even farther and see oneself in the 
Far West, either fording a stream on horseback, with 
my father, or being unable to ford it. We can go back 
to four years and see a great long row of oxen pull- 
ing a house. It must have been a log cabin, and the 
neighbors must have all come together and helped 
move it upon the prairie. 

That's the way they did in those good old days when 



24 A LOG CABIN. 

men were friendly and neighborly one with the other. 
Those good old days are to-day, however, just as they 
were then. And your fine man that looks so handsome 
and well-dressed, with a little more sand in his charac- 
ter, put there by a little more or a good deal more 
physical work, would to-day be just as friendly and 
just as strong and fine a man as were those old-time 
pioneers, and be as democratic as they were. 

Still, again, after leaving the first log cabin, clap- 
boarded over, in which I saw the light, and which I do 
not remember, I can see a man making a hole in the 
roof of the porch for the stove-pipe to go through. 
And after remaining in this second house for a time, I 
can see one of those little animals that we call a pole- 
cat coming into that house, and, as it seemed to me, 
getting on my trundle-bed and making that whole 
house terrible for some time ; but the animal was killed ; 
not in the house, however, but outside. 

HE WOULDN'T TOADY TO A TOAD. 

And now for two incidents to show you two sides of 
this little boy's character. A little brother has to be 
looked after, and no doubt the larger brother of four 
years thought much of his superintendence of this little 
fellow ; so much so, in fact, that one day when he hap- 
pened to see one of those ugly little animals called a 
toad — no wonder he was scared ! Of course, he ran 



SCORNS DANGER! 



into the house as fast as he could to tell his mother. 
Ah, stop ! He had some proper sense of his duty, even 
though it cost him considerable trouble, and endan- 
gered his own life. He might be afraid, but his duty 
must be done at any cost ; so that little baby-brother is 
picked up, and the hero of that little episode toddled 
into the house, thus saving his baby-brother from the 
terrible fate of that awful toad! But, then, that is a 
story I don't remember myself : I take it from the fam- 
ily lore of little bits of that early history. 

A SCIENTIST. 

Here is another that shows a rapid growth in the 
line of philosophy : Somewhere, along about six years, 
— probably in a brown study, contemplating the fact 
that so much of this world's knowledge is of only a 
second-hand nature, and he must try and obtain it first- 
hand that it will to him at least be fresh — passing along 
by the side of the wood-shed, near the house, and 
nearly a thousand miles away from where he was in 
the last incident, we see him carrying a wedge, an iron 
wedge — and you know that iron wedges are heavy! 
But do you know what a feeling is ? Can you tell what 
sort of a thing it is to feel a cut when you haven't 
one ? You know, of course, that it w T ill hurt if you 
are cut, but what of the feeling? 

What more natural to the young investigator than to 



26 FACTORS OF FACTS. 

try to see what this sense of feeling is, and to see how 
it would feel if he should let that wedge fall on his 
toes ! No sooner said than done ! Down comes the 
wedge — but alas, that destroyed the experiment ! We 
have no recollection whatever as to anything further, 
except possibly a terrible crying spell and running into 
the house for such comfort as could be given. Need- 
less to say, we have been content with second-hand 
experiments since, to some extent. 

THE COST OF A MAN ! 

But to return to the farming experience! We came 
back full of the feeling of having spent a long and 
arduous year. Good for one? Possibly; but, for one 
thing, why should it be good to overwork ? In the first 
place, we could not have overworked ; for we were 
fatter than ever in our life. Is it good, then, to pass a 
long and weary time in one's boyhood when he might 
be having good sport, and growing along hardly know- 
ing what unhappiness is? — going to college and play- 
ing foot-ball or being instructed in rowing! 

Do you think that trials, privations, and hardships 
are all paying simply because a man amounts to some- 
thing — as it is called ? Hasn't he paid too dear for his 
whistle, if it were possible for him to have had less of 
struggle and more of pleasure and less made out of 
himself? It's a question. I once met an old shoe- 



AN UNKNOWN SOCRATES. 27 

maker, who reminded me very much of the pictures of 
Socrates I had seen from time to time. You may re- 
member these pictures — and I expect they are not far 
from correct ; for a good deal of fun was made of 
Socrates in his time because of his appearance. These 
pictures made him appear anything but handsome, a 
kind of squatty-looking face; but what ability! 

And the shoemaker proved to be a very able man, 
indeed. Just the way, you see! We think we must 
look to men with great reputations for wisdom and 
knowledge; while as likely as not there are men right 
around us who know more than these same wise men 
ever thought of knowing. After he had told me some 
very suggestive facts about the bad adjustments of our 
social fabric, I asked him if he would not rather have 
his intelligence and be poor, than to be rich and not 
know nearly so much. 

A HOME AND A GOOD SALARY. 

" Well," he said, " it is very satisfactory to have 
enough money to get along comfortably with." That 
was the gist of his answer. I have often thought of it ; 
and it looks as if one might be glad to barter some in- 
telligence for wealth. 

Well, as I was saying: I mean, as I meant to have 
said, when I was on the farm there were some sore 
times, and no doubt many a crying spell for the boy, 
and probably much more fun than he ever gave himself 



28 GRANDMOTHER. 

credit for — although he did so want to go nutting with 
a boy of his own age, and a relative; but we don't know 
if he even proved fearless enough to ask. At any rate, 
he didn't go. 

And there are incidents of all kinds throughout a 
whole year ; now mostly forgotten. But we remember 
two that we must tell you of. I think he must have 
agreed not to eat butter while he was away, and on that 
account his grandmother — dear old lady — used always 
to have rich gravy prepared for him. We must do 
credit to these people both ways : for if I am writing a 
book that should be popular, then I will let them have 
one; justice, thus, is mine. 

Once I was taken in a sleigh to school. To school, 
mind you ! I was sent to school ; and that was a very 
kind act, long to be remembered. It isn't every kins- 
man who would have done that. And a sleigh-ride, 
even once, speaks a great deal for that kinsman. 

A DEEP-LAID PLOT ! 

Once I surreptitiously wrote a letter home, asking to 
return. I placed the letter into the hands of a faithful 
friend, who, with great foresight, never sent it ! But I 
heard from the letter! and my kinsman, a very near 
one, said to me, that he thought as my father owed 
him something, I would do a little work to pay it. 

Well, well ! It's astonishing what words may do for 



A WORD CUTS DEEP. 29 

the sensitive mind ; cuts and burns are something, but 
the mind seems at times to be more tender ; and that re- 
mark was a fearful gash to my young mind. 

In later years, when I think of families divided by 
the inequalities of wealth, I pity, with a kind of abhor- 
rence, the meanness of the rich, which is often due to 
their ignorance, and I feel as if it would be pleasant, 
when they have taken the fine slice of the old home- 
stead by ways unbrotherly and selfish — I feel it would 
do me good to see them go through just a few years of 
the hardest kind of poverty that they might have at 
least a little knowledge of how mean they had been in 
occasioning distress to others. 

But what's the use? Their meanness is their own 
punishment: nature isn't cheated one solitary atom; 
you may cheat the gallows or the penitentiary, but old 
Dame Nature will have her pound of flesh every time, 
as surely as a stone falls to the ground. But, thank the 
Lord ! generosity gets its own just as surely. 

A WEDDING. 

And now I am about to relate a little incident that 
the angels might envy. You also will notice how it 
must have gone to the heart of a poor lonely boy, away 
from his home for about a year. There had been a 
marriage : the intelligence was brought to us before the 
occurrence by the kinsman aforesaid ; he called us into 



3Q THE BRIDE'S PRESENT. 

the little parlor and told us that we were about to have 
a new. . . I am not telling you who this kinsman was, 
so you can put in the word yourself. 

And so, there was a marriage. They were all people 
who were comfortably off. But a funny thing was the 
bridegroom taking a jug of molasses on the wedding 
day for a present to the bride or her family — I hope it 
wasn't the only present he gave her! 

A DAINTY ACT. 

I went — about twelve miles — with the bridegroom in 
his little, high, open buggy, and behind his good little 
horse. I came back with another kinsman, down the 
smooth turnpike at a rattling pace. The couple went 
on a wedding journey. 

As soon as they returned, I was done with " serving 
time," and about to come home. But before leaving, 
the bride was too busy to take her hands out the dough 
and shake hands with me, so she stooped down and 
kissed me: really, it doesn't seem now as if it were 
me at all ; but it was. 

And that little incident has remained as the pleas- 
antest memory of that whole year. So we see what a 
force these little caressing factors are to make this old 
world cheerful and happy; factors that we foolishly 
look upon as of little or no importance; while, in 
reality, they are more important than all our big deeds 



KEY TO THE UNIVERSE! 31 

put together. Who, acknowledging the progress of 
humanity, can deny that peace is mightier than war, 
generosity than selfishness, love than hate ? As a mat- 
ter of fact, the whole world is working for love, fight- 
ing for love, living for love, dying for love. Is there 
anybody who is living and .vorking solely for himself ? 
If any such, they are the fewest of the few. 



32 A COLD RIDE. 



IT 



AND now comes school sometimes, and a little 
traveling sometimes, and a little work on 
our own account sometimes. On a wintry 
day — not merely pictured in a book, but the actual thing 
itself — we well remember crossing a mountain not a 
thousand miles from New York — as they put it in 
books — and my father was driving a wagon across the 
cold, desolate top. 

INCIDENTS TO BURN ! 

And that ride! We both had to get out the wagon 
— it had a top to it. We walked behind. Even to this 
day it seems the fiercest and worst wind I was ever in. 

And away up there — as you will often find if you go 
to such places — we found in that bleak and lonely re- 
gion a house. We stopped there, I remember, and I 
think we must have stayed a good while and enjoyed 
that old mountain home. I am sure my father had 
quite a talk with the owner. I only mention it — no par- 
ticular point about it, simply one of many peculiar ex- 



RUNNING THE GAUNTLET. 33 

periences passed through in lieu of being a millionaire ! 
Don't imagine it necessary to " cruise round " very 
much to find such scenes; the poor boy has plenty of 
them — a good deal too many, in fact; so many that 
most of them are forgotten — as we forget the incidents 
in a hundred-page newspaper : how pleasant to forget ! 
But they toughen you — maybe make you too tough ; 
so that you can't appreciate the frailer part of human- 
ity, whose lives would have been crushed out if they 
had had the same experiences. Yes, they will efface 
the softness, the delicate touches that nature often 
gives, leaving, nevertheless, maybe, an undercurrent of 
pure, smooth water, even if the top be a little cold and 
icy at times. 

can't snub the past! 

Few men reach decided success of themselves ; they 
have a generation to start them. Thus, a man who 
starts poor, usually has poor parents; which nearly 
always means that all their lives the parents have been 
poor; while he marches ahead, owing largely to the 
fact that he has a vast amount of wisdom imparted to 
him by his parents — they gained theirs in the hard toil 
of life, but have had none of the rewards it may be 
possible for him to gain, simply because he makes the 
best possible use of their hard-earned wisdom. This 
gives him great advantage over his fellows. 
3 



34 A FIXED SALARY— NOTHING! 

For a man to start in the battle of life not only poor 
but without knowing much of what life really is, must 
seldom mean less than a serious struggle with poverty. 
And many a man has thus found himself in the years of 
full manhood. 

Not having felt necessity's hard pinch, and now find- 
ing himself without money, without a trade or a profes- 
sion, and incapable of that serious daily drill which, in 
the prime of life, has become second-nature to the man 
with a trade — can we exaggerate the courage that, 
under such circumstances, faces life hopefully ? 

Now, in spite of everything he can do, the hard hits 
that such a man gets go directly to the entire family, 
and it shows his good sense if he lets the rough places 
be softened by the kind words and cheerful ways of 
children and wife : this he generally does, more or less. 

DOUBLY SELF-MADE! 

And so it comes about that your self-made man gets 
all this experience with almost the first breath of life. 
As a boy, he sympathizes with his parents in all their 
hardships and trials, and longs for the time when he 
may help them out of their discomforts and see them 
in good conditions. 

Thus the poor boy has the experience of two lives in- 
corporated into his one life ; and when he grows to 
manhood's estate, he brings a fresh, vigorous mind and 



SAVE YOUR SPENDINGS! 35 

body to do work his father cannot do; and with his 
father's wisdom and his own energy and experience, as 
well, he encounters men, armed as few men are unless 
armed with a similar start. 

This was my case. My father had lived in the com- 
parative ease and comfort of a fine rural home, know- 
ing, as such men usually know, nothing of the value of 
money, nor anything of the hardships often necessary 
to pass through to get a few thousand, or even a few 
hundred, dollars — maybe more often than all, a few 
dollars — ahead. 

HIS LITTLE EXPERIENCE 

MEASURES THE WHOLE WORLD. 

Nothing seems easier to the rich man or to the man 
with a few hundred dollars — though more likely the 
man with a few thousands or many thousands — than to 
get a little money ahead. The problem is beyond his 
comprehension, why a man his equal in character, men- 
tal capacity, and attainment, " honest, intelligent, and 
not afraid of work," should not succeed. He is sure, in 
fact, there is no such problem, it being too absurd for 
argument. And he never grows weary of showing 
how easy it is for such a man to become prosperous, 
writing, talking, and dreaming to that effect until it 
is so died-in-the-wool that nothing short of a mental 
earthquake would change his opinion. 

As we unroll the scroll of incidents, fact, and princi- 



36 ENEMIES WHO DO OUR FIGHTING. 

pie let us see if we cannot bring that mental earthquake 
into action, — by allowing these factors to play their 
part, by challenging conventional ideas, and by intensi- 
fying our appreciation of armies of mankind, the peers 
of those who have reached the monetary ideal of suc- 
cess. 

Not, however, to change the opinions of the hard- 
headed, cut-and-dried conservative. That would be a 
waste of time! They will do us more good as un- 
compromising opponents, who, by their very obstinacy, 
have a tendency to make others think opposite to them- 
selves. 

TRACING THE GOLDEN STREAM. 

What we care to do, is to say those things that will 
make people who are poor appreciate what they have 
done in the world ; to feel an interest in practical means 
for getting what is justly theirs; to see clearly that the 
difference between their poverty and comfort, or the 
difference between being out of work and having 
plenty of work, or the difference between the poorest 
wages and the first-class wages, may, generally speak- 
ing, be fairly measured by the robbery that civilization 
allows — and regards upon the average — as perfectly 
lawful and proper. 

But, going into the subject further, it must be ex- 
plained that a new idea is not necessarily what its first 



HONEST ROBBERY! 37 

statement seems to make it. Thus, when we say that 
such an enormous robbery is taking place, one might 
infer that we mean that all rich people are robbers, 
and, being robbers, are as bad as we usually consider 
robbers to be. 

" Won't do ! " We must have charity to see things 
straight. Men can rob and be honorable as the world 
makes men, and love their fellow-men, too; that we 
may as well be assured of in the first place. 

If you want to differ here, and say that no man 
can rob and be a man, or some such kindly speech, 
allow me to go farther and say that men can do any- 
thing from swearing to killing — w T hat's war but murder 
by wholesale? and who denies that the noblest men on 
earth often have been soldiers? — can do anything, I 
say, and still be men, and good men, too. 

GIVE BILLIONAIRES THEIR DUE ! 

But as to robbery. Suppose, when a child, we learn 
something in religion that in after-years we think un- 
true, were we doing wrong to act as we thought we 
should while a child ? Robbery in our civilization pre- 
sents the same idea : men never suppose it to be wrong, 
— are born to think is right, — I mean the robbery that 
takes the billions, — and live and die as good and honest 
as you or I may be. 

We must take a reef in our animosity: — men lie in 



38 QUESTION? 

business, but they are not very bad men, after all, — 
may be, indeed, the noblest of men, in other respects. 
But when custom sanctions anything, then we might as 
well acknowledge, at once, that the very best of human- 
kind are as likely to follow that custom as any one 
else. Not only that ; our robbers are more than egged 
on by us all. Granted that the robbery exists, who is it 
that does not want to be a robber ? 

Before you answer, — with too much alertness, — let 
us ask ourselves if we are not educating ourselves and 
the children of this generation as far as we can so that 
they may be in the shoes of the robbers, and rejoice 
in the fruits of the spoilsman. 

can't stop! 

And again, if you should demur, and say, " No, we 
are above that," let us, then, take note of the fact that 
we all want to get ahead ; and if it be right to make mil- 
lions, when a man has made one million it is as natural 
for him to want more as it is for him to want more 
when he has made one dollar, desire having no natural 
limit — as when we have " eaten sufficiently and drank 
the same." 

Suppose me to be worth one million! If it is right 
that I should have that, why shouldn't I go on and be a 
second Vanderbilt ? Or go ahead of them all, and get 
to be worth more than Li-Hung-Chang was, with his 
half-billion? 



A GOOD MILLIONAIRE. 39 

But here is the question, with you that are so prone 
to think you would act out the full measure of your 
belief. Where shall men stop in this race for wealth? 
Who can name the sum above that which it is robbery 
to take, and below that which is just? That's the ques- 
tion ! And until that is settled you can hardly say a 
man may not go ahead and make all he can, even 
though you feel sure that somewhere he reaches a point 
that makes him a robber. 

And so I say a man may be a robber and be a good 
man ; and we can all see that some of the very best men 
that ever lived have been of the millionaire class, — 
Peter Cooper, for instance. 

But let us continue our narrative: for we had just 
entered into the subject of the poor boy's position to- 
ward his father, and the fact that the boy combines the 
father and the son in one. We go back to our earliest 
recollection. 

SADDLE-BAGS. 

Being the oldest, we were, in a way, depended on ; 
and we were rendered more independent and able to 
rely on our own resources a trifle better possibly than 
was the case with the younger members of the family. 

And what does the resourceful memory bring up? 
Why, I am taking a ride behind my father, his saddle- 
bags on the horse, and fun alive on our part. And 



40 FIRST LESSONS. 

then I remember his taking me out in the buggy, — city- 
folks call it a carriage, — he taking me along to pinch 
him, as he said, to keep him awake. I expect I was 
a great little jabberer with him; but never, never with 
strangers. Once, when very little, I made the mistake 
of getting into a stranger's lap, thinking it was my 
father's; but when I found who it was, I jumped down 
like a shot. 

Very early was I a partner with my father in the 
woes that beset a poor man as naturally as does the 
need of food to eat. And in this early day — when I 
could not have been more than six or seven years old — 
I went over all the country round about with him. 

At this time, through a mishap in a little speculation, 
he lost about a hundred dollars ; a friendly loan helped 
to tide over the difficulty — and I tell you what, a little 
money at the right time is like the cooling dews from 
heaven, and no mistake. 

A PIONEER, NOT A MILLIONAIRE. 

You see, my father was one of those men who started 
in life with two or three thousand dollars, goes out 
West, helps to start a settlement, has energy and push, 
could have been Judge if he had wanted to ; then comes 
some hard, pinching times, and he sees his little stock 
of money pretty well mowed away ; then he leaves for 
the East. 



BEWARE! 41 

It is the lot of the poor man to be in debt, among 
his many struggles. Why, I am in debt, and am a 
young man. But I've been in debt a good many years. 
Still, it doesn't worry me. But if you, and you, and 
you will buy this book, and if it be a success, just come 
round and I will show you a receipt that will, for sev- 
eral days, make the man I pay hardly know whether he 
is himself or somebody else. 

The strict letter of honesty is to treat the creditor 
fairly. Those who would exact more must be lacking 
in honesty themselves. Mark Twain paid off a great 
debt, — all honor to him. Had his work proved unsuc- 
cessful, would his sterling integrity have been less ? 

BARBARISM OR CIVILIZATION. 

It is all very nice to have your fine-spun theories 
about keeping out of debt, but where would your banks 
be if they couldn't lend money? Where would your 
nation be if it couldn't borrow money? And should 
there be no borrowing nor lending in society ? 

Verily, saith the preacher, keep out of debt if you 
can ; for it is a long ways from freedom ; but don't test 
the tree of principle till the lightning strikes it — and 
you, too. However, all bad may be turned to good, 
and there are times when the noblest self-sacrifice is 
to keep in debt — remember that, Mr. Debtor, and Mr. 
Creditor. 



42 A CREDIT TO CREDITORS. 

Let me say a good word for the person I am owing. 
He has never sent me a bill, and it is well-outlawed by 
this time ; yet that neither affects the justice of his 
claim, nor, let us hope, the steadfastness of my deter- 
mination to be true to my obligation. 

But here is the denouement of this little story.- Not 
long ago, in some trepidation, I called upon my cred- 
itor. Remarkable to relate, the circumstance was ut- 
terly forgotten ; he even doubted my indebtedness ! 
More curious still, he had sold out to an old friend of 
our family, who also knew nothing whatever of such a 
matter. So. here is a fix! When I become rich — 
through a splendid sale of this book — whom am I to 
pay? 

Yes, my father — for the first twenty-five years of his 
life, and maybe thirty — never knew what it was to be in 
debt, but he was, indeed, a man of substance in the 
community, and being of one of the most energetic, 
thrifty, and well-to-do families of his neighborhood, 
was regarded with the esteem such circumstances merit. 

MILLIONAIRE ANCESTORS. 

His father owned a large farm ; had been one of the 
early settlers, and was the kind of man that in a city 
would be represented by a millionaire to-day. And it 
was no more to him than it is to you and to me to be 
regarded as common every-day millionaires, our weary 
daily round the tread-mill of our counting-rooms ! 



EXPIATION. 43 

All this the poor man understands : he knows how 
much he is respected, how much deference is paid him, 
how the man of wealth overshadows him in everything, 
how his children even are looked up to in spite of all 
we may say as to their putting on airs. That is for- 
given — and pretty nearly everything else — on the score 
that they are of the good old stock ; that is, of wealth 
and of good, solid standing. 

Little does it all seem to such a man, as he gets along 
finely with the world — so far as its honor of him is 
concerned ; little does it seem to him that he could ever 
be regarded in the light of a nobody so long as he is 
honest and does his duty by the world. 

A CHILD IN LIFE'S EXPERIENCE. 

Little does he think that he could ever be considered 
even by the " four hundred " as one to snub with im- 
punity. Oh, no! Your rich and comfortably-fixed 
man can never come to that. This world is for him, 
and he must live always far above that which the 
upper-crust of society regards with disdain. 

Well, it's very nice to live as you want to, but there 
are some who are brave enough and have force of 
character enough to live and yet not live as they want 
to, but rather as a noble duty compels them to: my 
father was of that kind. 

And it was my fortune to march side by side with 



44 THE STONE THAT BUILDERS REJECTED ! 

him, seeing him face blunders, trials, mishaps, and the 
" veering flaw " of life with imperturbable vigor and 
undaunted hope, relentlessly standing to duty. Do you 
wonder I think I may have learned something others 
have not learned? Do you wonder that, marching 
along, side by side till the father becomes a warrior, 
tried by many a battle, and the boy becomes a man and 
sees stringing along his pathway a seemingly-endless 
variety of experiences-^— do you wonder he thinks he 
may have picked up, here and there, some stray bits of 
information that might be entertaining? — or, a remedy 
for the injustice of his time being needed, he presents it 
to a waiting public ? 

Or, isn't it just possible that a mixture of wisdom 
may have lodged in his mind along with these divers 
kinds of experience : a rolling stone gathers no moss. 
No, but it may get an idea of the different kinds of 
mosses that would do its old sides good ! and make the 
old stones that didn't roll fairly turn green with envy ! 

COUPLETS. 

So our years of youthful life find many changes, and 
it is not all on the disagreeable side of life. Far from 
it ! If you pass through the bad place, you will prob- 
ably pass through the other, to make up for it; and who 
shall say that a calmness of life gained by continuous 
struggle and hardship is not in itself a magnificent pay 
for the tempest, storm, and turmoil of past trials ? 



BEAUTY. 45 

But the dose has to be taken, my friend, or an army 
of conquerors will march past us! Ah, but the army 
we don't see, which too great hardship has destroyed ! 
It has made a Lincoln, — but it doesn't make a jolly, 
happy, frolicsome fellow, — with a vacuity of knowl- 
edge seldom enjoyed by the poor man ! 

Let us score another point here : this sort of experi- 
ence doesn't make beautiful women. I mean physical 
beauty. The beautiful woman must have the easier 
ways of life. 

We don't care much for the men; they may look as 
they please, but the woman, with cheeks of the ap- 
proved pattern for beauty and with generous physical 
adornment, has to say, " Excuse me from such a life ; 
I'll take my beauty, and you can take the rough usage 
that scares beauty away." 

FINE OR SUPERFINE! 

It's worth stopping a second to note that fact. For, 
isn't beauty nature's last and finest touch? Then, 
isn't it very near the truth to look upon hardships, 
however developing they may be, as not quite so devel- 
oping as a life that brings both men and women up to 
that last fine touch that gives beauty ? 

On the other hand, beauty of character is the real 
beauty ; and no child ever thought less of its mother, 
and no man, either, because she happened not to be a 
beauty. Our deepest feelings of love find little place 



46 THE FIRST. 

in beauty, although it has its place in life, and shows 
us what nature can do when the proper conditions are 
provided. 

And so the warfare of life marches merrily on ; and 
now, exactly as the clock strikes twelve, recounting 
the years of life in our boyhood-history, we find our- 
self in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. If you wish to know 
whether this be strictly a fact, you will find — if you 
look it up, and guess my age correctly — that at the 
date of which I speak it was one of the hottest seasons 
for that time of the year, — the first week in June. See 
what a memory / have ! — the way with all great men ! 
I ran out, and found the road very hot to my bare feet. 
Swimming in the river, I saw a man putting a scream- 
ing baby into the water ; it seemed very cruel — better 
to start in shallow water. And here it was I took my 
first and last glass of beer. 

THE LAST. 

We were staying over a saloon. Going down-stairs, 
I met there a young girl, whom I asked to get a drink 
of water. She probably thought she would do me a 
great favor, and went into the cellar and brought up 
what I supposed was a fine glass of cold water, or 
maybe I thought it was a glass of soda water. At any 
rate, I didn't wait long on ceremony, and half a glass 
was gone before I knew it ! Whatever it be to you, to 



PRICE OF THE WORLD— HEALTH. 47 

me it was fearfully tasting stuff ! — and what a surprise ! 
As I don't suffer in such a way as to need a " spring 
medicine," or seem to require my blood purified, 
thinned or thickened, I am sure you will excuse me if 
at the magnificent collation given in my honor I only 
touch the glass to my lips ! 

And that reminds me that my father did not have a 
constitution made of iron ; precisely as I have said of 
other experiences, his sons got the benefit of his hard- 
earned knowledge — he was never tired of drilling them 
on the usefulness of good health and the proper means 
of retaining it. Imagine what a brilliant child I must 
have been, with eyes like the gleaming sunshine ! But 
much care and study was necessary to gradually de- 
velop the frail child that he might some day be able to 
compete with the master-minds of his age ! 

THE FAMILY DOCTOR. 

Why, when I first saw the light of day nobody 
thought I would live. And I would have been with the 
angels long ago, instead of having to wait to join 
them, if my mother hadn't put her mind on matters and 
studied and learned and read while doing her own 
thinking. 

Aye, it's no fun I'm telling now : no doctor's pre- 
scriptions kept me alive. And I can well remember 
when I was not much over four years of age, being put 
into a wet-sheet pack ! 



48 PILLS, POTIONS, AND 'POTHECARIES. 

That is not a bad beginning in itself for hardship; 
but that baby was brought into this world to stay here ; 
and stay its mother was bound it should, or she would 
know the reason why. 

And, rather than trust that baby's life to the tender 
mercies of strange doctors and much stranger prescrip- 
tions, she learned the reasons. For no doctor that 
ever lived could come within miles of understanding 
the cases of strange children as a mother can under- 
stand her own child when she is bound to learn and to 
be herself the doctor. 



REPUDIATION. 

Well, if I don't owe about ninety per cent, of what 
I am to my mother, nobody does ; and, to tell the truth, 
I owe as much to my father ; nothing being left for a 
self-made man but a big debt ; and I might as well 
own that I'll never pay it. 

As I said before, in this hot part of the year occurred 
my birthday, — to let you a little further into family his- 
tory, — at Bethlehem ; and there, with two hundred dol- 
lars of my father's money, a partner left him. 

That isn't much, — as a poor Irish girl once said to 
me of a thousand pounds a year. No, but what would 
it have been to her ? 

It's like a relative who once said that she and her 
husband lost everything, and had to start over again 



THE EARTH TO START WITH ! 49 

with nothing — nothing! and they had fifteen hundred 
dollars to start with. 

It's like Rockefeller's saying that if he were a young 
man again, and started with a hundred thousand dol- 
lars, he would know just where to place it to get rich! 
I challenge Mr. Rockefeller's statement ; a young man 
should have a million to start with ! 

MILLIONS AND DIMES. 

Two hundred dollars, — not much? What is your 
head worth? One head in a thousand isn't worth 
much : what would it ordinarily count for in an army ? 
But one head to the man who owns it is worth about 
all there is in this world or any other. And the loss to 
my father was as much as to a millionaire to lose his 
entire fortune. 

Once, when buying a carpet, the salesman said he 
should not think it would take a great while to select 
thirty-five yards of carpet. One doesn't always answer 
back, as now and then it would be good to, but I felt 
like telling him that it was not the amount that counted 
— a man might have but three or four children, but 
they were more precious to him than a whole nation 
of other children. 

There is no sum that is small in this world to those 
who can't get it ; and the widow's two mites may have 
been more to her than twenty millions to a Vanderbilt- 
4 



5 o MY TITLED FOREFATHERS. 

We are too ready to grant that things are important 
according to their size. I, for one, contend that a 
President of these United States doesn't begin to exer- 
cise the ability that many a man has demonstrated in 
his own family. Nor is it required of him. And the 
honor is a thousand to one with the man who has been 
the true, righteous, and self-sacrificing father. 

In the one case, the man is trotted out before the 
world for a little four, or possibly eight, years ; in the 
other, the majestic hand of God himself numbers out 
the years or minutes that have been as years in the 
character-building for himself and family. 

Honor ! And the idea of dropping your own name, 
the title-deed, as it were, to all you are, for that of Mr. 
President ! High honor, that position should be more 
than manhood, a place than the man. 

The Lord made man, but I never knew He made him 
President ; and I, for one, put a man before any posi- 
tion on the face of God's footstool. Isn't that right? 
But now to get back to our story ! 



"DISTRICT SCHOOL NOT FAR AWAY." 51 



III 



AND now we slip through a few years and are 
at school ; say, for about a year and a quar- 
ter. We had had a little training from time 
to time in school, as well as when working for our 
kinsman in the West, and were quite well up in arith- 
metic ; so we started in next to the highest class in the 
public school. 

THE MAYOR AND i! 

This was in Newark, New Jersey. The principal 
was mayor of the city for a number of terms after- 
ward. Some years after leaving school, we visited him 
and the school, and he had us recite. We gave them 
Darius Green and the Flying Machine. My impres- 
sion is that it went off very satisfactorily — and children 
are keen critics ! But the best thing was when he told 
the school, as he brought me forward, that he wanted 
to show them the kind of young men that graduated 
from his school. Of course, I felt quite proud of that. 

Later, I called on him while he was mayor. He told 



52 "SAY ANYTHING, BUT DON'T FORGET ME" 

me a good deal about the kind of work he had to per- 
form as mayor, and what a horde of politicians he had 
to manage, and how they would do anything to get into 
some little petty office. 

He said the worst trouble he had at first was when 
his opponents made cutting hits at his honorable 
school-teaching record. And he said that reporters 
would say the worst possible things about him, yet 
the very next day be in his office in spite of all they 
said, and that he had to treat them as pleasantly as a 
basket of chips. 

AT THE TIP-TOP. 

We must have pitched-in pretty hard in school, for 
we passed into the next class at the beginning of the 
year, and we had been there only a quarter, or not 
much longer. 

In this highest class was a boy who had been in it a 
year. I am sure he was sharper than I, but the worker, 
you see, will get ahead. On a rather close shave, I 
got through that class and took the examination all 
right for the High-School. 

But that boy didn't get in. I remember his father 
was to give him a gold watch if he got through. What 
a prize that seemed to me ! But it takes something be- 
sides gold-watch prizes to make one study ; and that 
boy was always having some trouble or other with the 
teacher. I can see him now, slamming down his books 



CAUGHT BUT ONCE! 53 

and throwing his head on his arms on his desk, crying 
mad. Some would say : he is seeing his happiest years ! 
Well, that boy had good stuff in him ; very different 
from myself, — to his advantage, no doubt; and I ex- 
pect he has made a first-class business man; — for the 
student and the man-of-business are seldom united in 
one and the same individual ; — and could buy and sell 
me over again a few thousand times. In school, pun- 
ishment was his daily portion. I was punished but 
once ; then I was kept in for ten minutes. I cried over 
it: it seemed I ought to cry, for one thing; and as a 
boy — even a pretty big boy — I found crying easy, — 
maybe I enjoyed it ! Then it was such a disgrace for 
me to care so little about my parents and for my studies 
that I should have to be punished, even if only for 
talking in school-hours. That was the only time; but 
it made me careful never to be caught speaking. 

NOT ON MY HEAD! 

The only other punishment I ever had in school, so 
far as I recollect, was when out West I was made to 
stand before the entire school. That time I think it 
was for playing : I have an impression that I had a little 
playmate, whom, — by the proper kind of nudging, — I 
started to laughing during school-hours. But I was 
found to be the real culprit. 

Some self-made men think that they alone have done 



54 A LUCKY CHANCE. 

it all when they can point to supporting themselves at 
college. Why, I should have tumbled over myself 
with perfect joy if I could only have been free to do 
that. That would have been grand indeed ! 

But many a poor boy knows a sacrifice far beyond 
that. He must work that those dear to him may not be 
too hard-pressed ; and he never thinks of supposing 
that he would leave the rest of the family to paddle for 
itself while he swims clear and free at school. 

I don't think vanity will be scored against me when 
I say that, after coming out of school, I went through 
an entire algebra alone, and was as much fascinated 
with it as one could be with a novel. 

ADDING THOUGHTS. 

But it seems to me very much as if thinking out any 
kind of a problem had a good deal of mathematics 
about it. You have to add and subtract, put this and 
that together, and multiply, and almost divide, too. 
Then, as in algebra, you have the unknown quantity 
to arrive at half the time, if not a great deal more than 
half the time. What is every bit of experience but the 
answer, or the repetition of the answer, to some un- 
known quantity or question? 

I am glad now I never went to college. For, in the 
broad pathway of life that leads to liberty and democ- 
racy, which makes us understand, sympathize, and 



PAST THE COLLEGE! 55 

helpful to each other, I am sure that the college teaches 
us as much to unlearn as it does to learn; that is, to 
put it with the egotism I feel : if I had gone to college 
I don't think I should have known as much as I know 
now ! 

To say what you feel once in a while, does you good ; 
so let egotism have its innings, like the remainder of 
our qualities : all are good in their place ; why not 
egotism ? 

" CLICK, CLICK, CLICK ! 

GOES THE TYPE IN THE STICK." 

Getting along in years now ! — fifteen, sixteen ; can't 
stay at school; can't go to college, can't stay at home 
and not work — must learn a trade. For a time we 
work at miscellaneous printing. It runs in the family, 
you see! printing, writing, and things of that nature. 

Finally, in that meandering course which one's his- 
tory naturally takes, we start as a " two-thirder " in a 
printing establishment in the city of printers, New 
York ; and there remained for two years. 

But let us not miss another and earlier experience, 
lest you will think, as I loftily flourish the pen, that I 
know working people afar off, instead of as co-work- 
ers and friends. Must we not, through these incidents, 
happening alike to millions, practically judge of the 
righteousness or unrighteousness of our times? 

We may well reckon their import ; for theirs it shall 



56 NO EXCUSE! 

be to decree whether we are to remain a millionaire- 
loving people or forego that sentimental attraction! 

But this other experience was as a clerk in a 
store. Oh, yes ! I clerked it for a time ! — started in 
at three dollars a week, and was raised to four. But I 
left for some reason or other, — I don't know what; — 
and no matter. It was simply an incident, which, with 
a few changes in time, place and persons, would an- 
swer for a million in a great city — the Gordian knot of 
similar experience that binds a nation into one people 
with a brotherly appreciation of each other's circum- 
stances. 

FUN ! 

In the printing office, where I began practically to 
learn a trade, I had an associate, — Chapel. He wasn't 
much of a churchman, though ; and there was Deacon, 
pious in name, but not in ways ; he set type next to me, 
and he and I had great times together. 

We used to tie the chair of Old Pop Sommers, when 
he was too busy to pay attention, and laugh ! — well, I 
guess we did, as Pop would wriggle round and try to 
get off his chair, or, rather, wooden stool. I can see 
Deacon now, with his jolly laugh and goodnatured, 
ruddy face, with, of course, ample tobacco accompani- 
ment. 

Pop had worked on the " Post," and used to see 
William Cullen Bryant. When I asked him what he 



RELIGIOUS PRINTERS. 57 

thought of the great poet, he quite nettled me by say- 
ing that he didn't see much about him that was great. 
But that is always the way with people, according to 
the proverb : a man is never great to his valet ; or possi- 
bly even the other proverb: familiarity breeds con- 
tempt. 

We have Chapel, Deacon, and Dean. Dean was 
more like a churchman than any of the rest; he might 
have belonged to a church. The three church connec- 
tions always struck me as a little curious. Then there 
was Ross ; he was tall, and the thinnest young fellow I 
ever knew ; such spindling little brown arms he had ! 

A JOLLY CREW. 

Then there was Dave Van Sant, assistant foreman, 
and Mr. Robinson; foreman. Dave and I were great 
friends, though not so great as Deacon and he were. 
You see, I never drank anything, and so I never went 
out with them, but I had a genial and often rollicking 
time with them in the shop. 

And there was Barkenheim. I know he won't thank 
me for more than telling his name ! Poor old fellow ! 
I don't suppose he is still in the land of the living ; yet 
he might be. Barkenheim had the unfortunate habit of 
— I will explain without using the word; for it is not 
quite right to say it in polite society. 

He used a little tobacco, and didn't care where it 



58 " THE PUNISHMENT FITS THE CRIME." 

went ; and as he was generally cross it went sometimes 
on somebody if they were too near him. This hap- 
pened in the case of the son of the foreman of the 
press-room down-stairs ; or it might have been fore- 
man in the job office, I don't know which. 

Anyhow, you see clearly enough that it was far 
from a pleasant thing to do, even if the boy annoyed 
him a little. Ah, he made a mistake! That boy's 
father had the right sort of stuff in him! He was 
short and stout ; the other, tall and thin. I don't be- 
lieve it took him long to get up-stairs ; and I guess it 
didn't take him very long to get into a fight with Bark- 
enheim ! 

Well, he went at him for all he was worth ; and I am 
very sure it served Barkenheim right. Dave came in 
and put a stop to the fighting, else I don't know what 
would have become of the poor old fellow. He had the 
worst teeth in the world ; and I thought the pum- 
melling must have hurt him pretty badly. 

These were the men I remember. There were, how- 
ever, a number of others that came and went. But 
these stayed about the whole two years I was there. 

POWERFUL ON THE RETREAT ! 

Personally, I never had a fight. One thing was, I 
was mortally afraid ; the other, I was sufficiently diplo- 
matic, either with tongue or heels, to keep out, and 
seemingly without much loss of prestige among boys. 



" BUTT." 59 

I remember my younger brother once having a little 
encounter of that sort, and I thought it was a wonder- 
ful occurrence. At another time, I was acquainted 
with a certain boy. We met another; and I think, by 
some chance, possibly intentionally, I laid down the 
gauntlet; for my friend got into a fight and told me 
it was my doings that led to it. But I am under the 
impression that that did not change our friendship. 

" ALL THAT I AXED VOS, LET ME ALONE." 

But the greatest fight that I didn't have was when we 
lived on the outskirts of Brooklyn ; or what was then 
a little out; and with a boy near by — "Butt" Fog- 
garty, by name ; he was hump-backed. But I never 
thought of pitying him for that. He was the kind that 
some call a bad boy. No gentle injunctions against 
fighting had probably ever been his. He could get his 
crowd around, as you know the boys say. Both my 
brother and I were in terror of him. 

Once, when my brother and I were a little distance 
from home, pushing the baby-carriage with a little 
baby brother in it, across lots, we saw Butt and his 
crowd aiming for us ! If they had been a regiment of 
soldiers they could not have scared us more. 

Away we went, making the best time on record, 
Butt and his crowd coming across lots after us. It was 
a run for life ! And I am very happy to inform all inter- 



60 VICTORY ! 

ested that we came in well ahead ; but I shall never 
forget that terrific moment when, in the distance we 
first saw Butt, the terrible leader of that brave and 
fearless gang" ! Still, as we came in first, we most cer- 
tainly scored a triumph. 

Ah, wo is me, for writing a truthful book ! How fine 
it would be if I could tell of hair-breadth escapes and 
brave battles in which I was a hero ; in which I never 
ran, but always got the best of the other fellow. 

But, as murder will out, so will we out with the 
truth, hit though it may ! Who knows but that great 
physical fear may lead to mental bravery? One must 
show some other side to counterbalance the weak side. 

When a certain general wanted to have a man shot, 
he told Lincoln the man was a born coward. Lincoln 
replied — as you are probably aware — that if he was 
born so, that was a good excuse. Lincoln got the right- 
side-up-with-care of a good many questions, that's 
sure! 

" HE RELATETH A GRUESOME TALE." 

Well, sir, you would hardly believe it unless you 
knew me well, but here is my little story : When a 
small boy — let us hope ever and ever so small, and at 
a time, too, when the school-teacher called me her 
sugar-plum — to which I greatly objected — I was out 
skating on a little pond in a vacant lot. 

The skates — which had been a present to me — I 



A BURNING SHAME! 61 

wanted to keep, when up came one of those wicked 
street-boys, armed with a club. That bad, wicked, im- 
mense monster of a boy, what does he do but go for 
me and for those skates. 

What was I to do ? You can't run much with skates 
on, and you can't fool a good stout boy with hard head 
and hard sense, by any sort of diplomacy ! You see my 
fix ? Of course, I couldn't hit the boy ; that would not 
be right, especially as he had a club ! 

My first thought, and the one no doubt on which I 
acted with great presence of mind, was to run ; but on 
the bank there, the boy overhauled me and my skates — 
one, I think, I had off, and the other was taken off my 
foot. 

Alas, alas ! that I should live to relate any such in- 
cident, and in a book that my opponents can quote from 
for the rest of my days. Let us pass from these har- 
rowing scenes and see what other events life has in 
store for us. 



62 EXPERIENCE BY THE YARD ! 



IV 



TAKING the hundred-page newspaper as our 
guide for method (?), how accurately it 
conforms to the incidents of life. 
Did you ever notice a cow or a horse eating grass? 
One would naturally say, how much better if they 
w r ould only stick to one spot, and eat the grass off nice 
and clean. But they don't do that at all. They wander 
here and there, like a stream of water, nothing definite, 
nothing certain at all; one tuft of grass will lead them 
here, another there. 

NATURE RUNS THE WHOLE UNIVERSE AT ONCE. 

Isn't that like every one's life? No matter if we are 
in the same business from beginning to end, every day 
will bring some change even to the most monotonous 
existence in the world ; none of us lives in one groove 
only, or does but one thing at a time ; rather a million. 

However, the change and diversity that would make 
a man a letter-carrier to-day and a wagon-maker to- 



THE NEW EDUCATION. 63 

morrow are more marked than if he should always be a 
letter-carrier. Now, while I am at work at printing, 
another occupation looms in sight, that of operating 
a stereopticon, my father the lecturer. 

Always progressive was my father ; and many a time 
did he say if he could not give his boys a university 
education, he would do the next best thing, he would 
give them a desire to know something. 

Ah, ha, I told you! — the poor man's hard-earned 
wisdom is used by his sons. That idea might be worth 
more to every boy in the land than all the colleges from 
now till kingdom come. 

it's practical. 

You may say truly it would not make a college foot- 
ball player, but it will make a college scholar — I had 
almost said make him a scholar as surely as if he had 
never gone to college. 

With varying success at other pursuits, this lecture 
field hove in sight, many a time, however, to be re- 
gretted by my father, he thinking that there was more 
money in something else : but shall a life be devoted to 
uncongenial pursuits when you can make a living and 
have a little happiness as well? 

As I said before, there is everything to life when 
you begin to tell the story. And I've not the slightest 
doubt that every reader could tell just as good a one if 



64 AN OLD QUAKER. 

he or she were to sit clown and put it into words. For 
ours the excuse: to cheer the reader over a rugged 
pathway. 

There never was a life but it had a mighty and won- 
derful history if it could all be told ; and that would be 
true even if we never moved from one spot. 

Think of the old Quaker I once met on Long Island 
who had lived for sixty-three years on the same farm 
where he was born, then left it, after all. Why, I ex- 
pect one could sit and listen to him for days as he told 
of incidents of his life, — all right on that one farm, that 
dear old place, sold at last because a railroad ran 
through it. 

the " HUB." 

When I tell you my father started as a lecturer, you 
may think he had never tried that field before ; but he 
had, or something akin to it, when, as I said, I went 
to Boston as a small boy. 

I can remember going out of Boston during cold 
weather and standing around the stove in some hall. 
And, after the evening's work was over, I remember 
riding back in a cold horse-car — no elegant trolleys 
then. 

The lady who played the piano for the evening's 
exercises had a rather queer name, Miss Schauneetzie 
— at any rate, that is the way it sounded. 



WISE WORDS. 65 

And speaking of queer names, brings back an inci- 
dent of babyhood, when Tom Gill Bride, a rollicking, 
good-natured Irishman, would lay on the floor, and, 
holding me up in his arms, get me to give the two little 
grunts that we sometimes use instead of the words 
" yes " or " no." No doubt he made me think I was 
making a fine speech ! 

Leaving Boston, at the early age of six or seven, for 
my trip south, I took up my residence in Brooklyn. 
There a teacher in a private school took me and all her 
scholars to see Pilgrim's Progress — the most marvel- 
ous, most brilliant, scene I ever saw, or ever expect to 
see in this world, whatever the other may have in store 
for me as to light and heat. 

DAZZLED. 

Such wonderful lights! Picture the most brilliant 
sunset you ever saw, then double it two or three times, 
and you have the panorama. 

When in Boston, I saw another performance more 
dazzling than any ever beheld, except to the susceptible 
imagination to which all is new, and that was the 
Black Crook. And the girl that was a sailorboy! 
Standing upon the deck of the ship, surrounded by her 
mates, she left an impression of beauty more brilliant, 
if possible, than that of the beautiful maidens of to-day ! 

And this reminds me of another little episode about 
5 



66 CHARMING. 

beauty when I was a very little fellow. I was visiting 
my uncle, and there seemed to be a large number of 
ladies of varying beauty there; like a little rogue, I 
began drumming upon the window. 

This was not right, to be sure, and the ladies began 
to talk about it; but I kept on. Finally, I offered to 
stop if a certain lady that I thought was the prettiest, 
would ask me to! 

Somehow or other, I don't think she got so far along 
as to ask me to stop, but my impression is that my uncle 
made his appearance and the delightful tapping on the 
window-pane ceased; but the relation of the story to 
my father unfortunately turned the tide against me, 
and a sad repentance followed my misdeed. 
who's afraid! 

I want to tell you how much was laid at my door, so 
to speak, when I was a wee boy. It was almost agreed 
at one time to leave me in the East with relatives ; while 
the rest of the family went West some five hundred 
miles or so. I was about six years' old; and even to 
talk of it shows the tendency of early experience. 
Such things are what make one say that the poor boy 
has a slashing experience of life that the rich knows 
not of. 

It might have been accounted for in this wise: If 
you have been a long distance from home you may 
have felt like saying, " Well, I'll be back here again in 



STEREOPTICON. 67 

a short time." And it often seems impossible, espec- 
ially if one has spent some months in a place, to think 
that he may not return for years, and possibly never 
visit that place again, as has often been my experience. 

Lecturing requires not only time and experience, but 
fame, to make it worth much to the one who lectures ; 
and there was work in store for us with the stereopti- 
con. We started; and at times no one could have 
asked for better success. 

At that time stereopticons were more scarce than 
now, — although I am not a man over seventy-five years 
of age, — and we used large gas-bags, while now they 
are hardly ever seen, being replaced by tanks that hold 
the gas, just such as you often see standing near the 
man who turns on the colored lights in the theater. 

SAFE AS AN OIL LAMP. 

Those tanks have a pressure of about 225 pounds to 
the inch. But there are tanks that are made of steel 
and occupy only a quarter of the space, — maybe less 
than a quarter, — and have a pressure of two thousand 
pounds to the inch ; probably as safe as most of the ap- 
pliances of civilization — a railroad train, for instance, 
or an automobile. 

We thought it necessary, at first, to get the lantern 
or stereopticon up high, so that it would shoot straight 
toward the center of the canvas, or pretty nearly so; 



68 OVER-NIGHT IN A PRESIDENT'S HOUSE. 

and that meant to put it up six or eight feet from the 
floor. 

We built a great platform with boards, and made a 
good hard day's work, and often several days' work, 
for ourselves. And this, with the excitement that my 
father went through in his preparation for the lecture, 
proved very, very hard work. But faithful work is 
sometimes rewarded, in spite of all the world may do 
or say, and the entertainment was usually a pretty 
thorough success. 

At one time, staying over-night with a minister, — in 
fact, the very house in which Cleveland was born, — I 
remember my father saying to him that he ought to be 
a very happy man with all his beautiful surroundings. 
But the remark did not please him, and he said that 
no one could tell what there was to the life of another. 

SUCH A HOME AS MILLIONS SHOULD OWN. 

Those were not quite the words used, but they ex- 
press the purport of the conversation : I have always 
thought he got the best of my father in his answer. 
Nevertheless, he did have things in pretty good shape, 
and lived in a fine, large house. 

Surely any man having attained to a comfortable 
home, a good salary, a wife and family, is weak indeed 
if he cannot be happy and face his battles of life cour- 
ageously and in a cheerful spirit. 

One can be happy and have nothing in the world — 



BISMARCK. 69 

no money, no property, no wife: I've tested that my- 
self. And when they have much, what are they good 
for if they are not happy ? 

But, then, men only think they are not happy — like 
Bismarck, who said he never had more than twenty- 
four hours of happiness in his whole life. He was a 
better warrior than a philosopher, that's evident ! Such 
a man had lots of happiness. 

Why, he was probably happy in telling the reporter 
the little story of his unhappiness. What is happiness 
but the healthful exercise of our physical and mental 
characteristics? So that all who are in their right 
mind are having a constant sensation of happiness in 
the daily walk of life. Even the habit of whining over 
troubles of various kinds often becomes a source of 
happiness to people, — as counting his gold is to the 
miser. 

ANGELIC BLISS ALL THE TIME. 

If you are looking for some far-away vision of a 
heavenly happiness, an ecstacy such as has come to 
some people when joining the church, or such as a 
man goes through when he strikes a gold mine, or as 
Handy Andy felt when he became a lord, or as I will 
feel when the printing presses get too hot trying to 
supply the great editions of this work! — such happi- 
ness is of course a rare article, and would keep us in 
too hot a climate if it lasted long ; twenty- four hours of 



yo IN THE DARK AND LONELY CHURCH. 

that kind of happiness might do as the royal pepper for 
a lifetime. 

But we had many adventures. One time we cleared 
a little fortune in three nights ; that was an inspiration ; 
later we made half as much in one night — wish I 
could keep on writing about a great number of such 
nights ! 

And one night we gathered together all our things 
late, and stayed in the church all night. A policeman 
came in quite late, but, seeing us packing, he was satis- 
fied. We were greatly afraid some one would find it 
out, though we put out the light and dozed by the fire, 
departing early in the morning without any notice 
being taken of our curious stop-over night. 

But there was a " short, sharp shock " to many of 
the experiences I had with my father, and in many 
lines that made cuts that last, till you might think, if 
you were me, there would be no fun left in life. But 
it isn't so — and we don't think the world is as mean as 
all out-doors, either. 

NO MONOPOLY ON YEARS. 

Not by a long chalk ! There are plenty of years 
ahead, and I guess we can be happy anywhere — the 
worst experiences make others easier; so can't we be 
happy as a hermit? happy on a farm, in the city, in 
society, or out of society ? 

I just guess we can! Can't we be happy, cheerful, 



A FIFTEENTH MILLIONTH CHANCE. 71 

laugh and have a good time if this book sells ? or if it 
doesn't? Why mention the last emergency? There 
there will never be a test ! 

Think I can't be happy unless I'm great ? You don't 
know how good experience has been to me. I want to 
be President, why not? Can I be much worse than 
some who have been Presidents? Or I want to be a 
hod-carrier; which is best? 

Climb to the top of a house all day, with muscles like 
iron — there's a man for you! What puny men have 
most of the Presidents been beside that sturdy monu- 
ment to nature. 

glorious ! 

Excuse me ! but I didn't come into the world to cry 
my eyes out because I'm not an alderman ! Can't we 
laugh while we " dig i' the earth," as the poet puts it, 
just the same as when sitting in a fine chair in an ele- 
gant room, with a darkey to adjust our coat, and an- 
other to fan our care-worn brow ! and high and mighty 
functionaries with every title under the sun, all politely 
tipping the hat to us, and saying, " Mr. President ! " — 
isn't the Presidential bee a-humming ? Yes, indeed ; 
for I am just one in fifteen million voters ; and what a 
fine chance we've all to be President. 

How will you and I act when we hear the word, 
"Next!"— to fill the Presidential chair? "Here's 



72. NOT EVEN SWALLOW-TAILS? 

me " : Reduce salary to three thousand a year — enough 
for any man in this world of ours, and he can have 
" beef-steak and spare-ribs, too," right along. Live in 
a comfortable little house, like a white man; walk 
about the streets same as any one, and never wear a 
swallow-tail coat, a high hat, or be called " Mr. Pres- 
ident ! " 

How's that! Wouldn't the high flumiky-flumiks of 
notables be shocked ! We'd shock them, " sho's yo' 
born ! " Sitting with our feet on top of the desk, we'd 
say : " Well, Mr. High Swellemme Swell, get right 
down to business, this is our busy day. Rush now ! 
It isn't every day you can sit down by the President 
of these United States : and I want you to be lively ! " 

Of course, he might reply, as the Irishman replied to 
his bedfellow the Judge, who said to him, " You'd be a 
long time in the old country before you'd sleep with a 
judge." " Yes," said the Irishman, " and you'd be a 
long time in the old country before you'd be a judge ! " 

A STAMPEDE ! 

But wouldn't it be fine sport to fire the representa- 
tives of the trusts, corporations, and monopolies out 
the back door ! And as the millionaires rolled in upon 
us, we'd split their ears with an Indian war-whoop, 
come down on our desk with a bang, slam the door 
with a crash, and tell them to " clear out, the whole kit 
and boodle of you : no more support for the rich, let 



WHAT, NO CASTLE? 73 

them feed themselves hereafter. Scoot ! " With these 
imperishable lines of jolly hope, and with the hallowed 
loftiness of the Presidential aspiration, allied to the 
sacred joy of a certain future, my thoughts traveled as 
I entitled this work " Poor?" — a question-mark after 
the word; for who is poor? Are " The dear people of 
the United States ? " is anybody ? or are we all ? 

A Vanderbilt's mansion, and a railroad to boot ! 
How much am I offered? And live as a Vanderbilt 
lives? Not so long as poverty is free! Think of a 
few of our greatest millionaires' estates and of the un- 
told wealth embodied in them. Would you — " honor 
bright ! " — have them as a gift ? 

" ' FREEDOM ! ' THEIR BATTLE-CRY." 

A hundred servants ! Excuse me ! Are we living as 
free men or slave-holders, if not slave-owners? I, for 
one, don't ask any man to stand behind me at the table 
and push up my chair for me to sit on : I at least try 
to respect my fellow-man, black or white. Besides, 
wouldn't such " courtesies " make the old-time slave- 
owner laugh at us ? 

Do you or I want the millionaire's magnificent lawns 
or roadways? — for their beauty? Why, the world is 
full of beauty never touched by the hand of man, and 
free as air. 

Poor? W T ell do I place that question-mark there. I'd 



74"SOOTHED BY AN UNFALTERING TRUST." 

like to see the man rich enough to trade with me ! To 
be sure, he has security from want, but, then, I have 
security too: the poor-house has no terrors for me. 
Having done my part in the world ; having let it rob 
me of many things that should have been mine ; why 
not proceed to the poor-house as a king to his treas- 
ury ? It is my right ! 

A little chance for improvement, the democracy of 
honest respect for your fellow-man, and isn't the poor- 
house superior to the most magnificent mansion ever 
reared by man, with a thousand servants to make a 
doll out of oneself ? 

" WHERE WEALTH ACCUMULATES AND MEN DECAY." 

Poor ? An independent man is never so poor as the 
man who has not earned what he possesses. The rich 
are born to dependence ; not independence. They wor- 
ship a grand, unfortunate, and ever-barbarous lie — 
wealth! Are men less than money? The man who 
looks down on one side and up on the other, as meas- 
ured by wealth, doesn't know the name Independence. 

Poor? Not so long as millionaires are called rich. 
What's the use of trying to make ourselves believe that 
robbery is the capstone of liberty or of happiness? If 
millionaires and millionaire-living is right, then liberty 
is but a pitfall and a snare for the unwary. 

If we want to live as millionaires, if they give us 



REVERSE THE ENGINE! 75 

our ideal, then the poor man should never complain of 
his poverty : he but worships the results of his poverty. 

" No, Sir ee, bob tail ! " — as we boys used to say 
when we were very sure of ourselves. Remember the 
boy who timed ten minutes to a very few seconds 
before a jury, the time he said he had taken to get a 
pail of water, his foot dangling over the arm of a 
chair with easy confidence ? " Don't you think you've 
pretty nearly drawn that pail of water ? " the lawyer 
said in a few minutes. 

" Nope ! " said the boy : and he never budged till the 
time was up, lacking but a few seconds. 

here's luck to us all! 

But to continue: I am the rich man, and the mil- 
lionaire is the poor man — that's where the truth is ! 
Let him ride in his fine sleigh, with bells a-ringing, yet 
the very zest of life is destroyed by having a surfeit. 
Ho, for a life of energetic activity ! 'Tis a million to 
one, as against the delights of the satiated rich. 

The man who has luck, the man who has all the 
chances of life thrown in his way, is the one born with 
the golden spoon of necessity in his mouth ; born to ap- 
preciate character — character, not wealth ; born to la- 
bor — the talisman to all that is good, the open sesame 
to the only happiness that this world contains. 

Luck, luck! I'm on the mountain-peak of it, while 



76 THE TABLES TURNED. 

the millionaire, with his burden of magnificence, is 
struggling over the cobble-stones in the valley. 

Poor ? Well do I say it ; and I repeat it here. Am I 
a pauper who can say I have aught that some poor, 
struggling chap has earned? Destitution and misery 
can't point to me and say, " I am supporting you." 

Let the millionaire envy me ; let him wish for my 
berth in this world ; let him long to be rid of his mil- 
lions that he may be a man; let him know that he is 
selling his birth-right to liberty for a mess of pottage. 

Let us remember that no robber-baron, either past 
or present, ever yet lived in a style so magnificent, 
so gorgeous or grand as to compare with that of an in- 
dependent man who earns an honest living. 

TO THE MISSISSIPPI OR THE NILE. 

We live : let the world move on. " It moves on," 
said the poet; but where will it move if it doesn't grant 
these precepts as truths ? It will move to Egypt, to the 
Pyramids. But it will move, and will move on as I am 
telling it to — so great am I, and so little is the world. 

But, possibly, even I, little as I may be, can see 
the side of a barn-door, and seeing it, also discern the 
truth, that is just as plain: that no robber equals an 
honest man, and that making other men poor will 
never — as there is justice, righteousness, or truth in 
the universe — make those happy who accumulate great 



u OUT OF THE OLD HOUSE." 77 

riches. And no means are known to man whereby 
great riches can be accumulated other than that of 
making other men poor. 

Let us then leave the rich man's mansion as we 
would leave some gilded cage : the home of slavery, the 
cause of misery, the knell of liberty. 

Let us leave it with a sort of joy, withal: what 
we can't have, we don't want ; a genial smile, in which 
the scorn doesn't come to the surface, and with the 
gentle assurance in our hearts that some day all these 
magnificent mansions " reared by dedal Jack " will 
make fine institutions of public resort. 

And surely the public ought to have fine libraries 
and beautiful buildings to visit now and then, if only 
to see what their neighbors can do in the way of handi- 
craft in wood or picture or stone. 

And now let us take a short glance through a man- 
sion that neither millions nor billions can buy ; one that 
has been more gorgeously furnished by poor men than 
by rich men — that mansion, if you please, is the mind. 

" MOVED UP INTO THE NEW." 

Upon opening the door of experience, we find again 
the stereopticon ; it is taking our attention; and, hav- 
ing become an expert, I receive a " handsome re- 
tainer " for an evening's work. But I didn't receive 
it very regularly. I illustrated for learned professors 



78 DON'T TELL ANYBODY. 

and men of much ability in the Academy of Music, 
Brooklyn, Steinway and dickering Halls, and Cooper 
Union, New York, as well as in other cities. 

But, as I say, the income was intermittent, and other 
and less agreeable occupations seemed often to loom as 
a duty. However, with my clothes for my real-estate 
and my imagination my salary, I was " well fixed." 

But, who knows, maybe this book will be of sufficient 
interest to make me a multi-millionaire, when I will 
hob-nob only with the " F. F. Vs ! " 

BEAT THE DUTCH ! 

The only miss I ever made in illustrating a lecture 
was at a famous hall in New York City. A somewhat 
irascible, but very able, man was the lecturer; and, 
after a steam-engine talk for about twenty minutes — 
he could beat any one I ever heard for talking fast — I 
heard a hiss in the lantern. 

I looked in, and the gas-pipe, near the tip where the 
gas comes out, was burning away. That was a fix ! I 
shut off the gas, and turned it on again very soon, — 
only to make matters worse, and render it impossible 
for me to go ahead. 

I informed the lecturer, whereupon the people were 
dismissed and the lecture postponed. Being one of a 
course of lectures it was not so serious as it might have 
been. My father was with me, — my especially good 



RINGING WORDS ! 79 

fortune, for, to me, it was a fearfully nervous affair, — 
and helped to mollify the lecturer's anger. He kindly 
informed me afterward, his disgust and fury were so 
great he could almost have wrung my neck. 

But I really was not to blame. For, in having the jet 
recently fixed, there must have been a small hole left in 
it near the tip ; and, as you may be aware, the oxy-hy- 
drogen gases produce one of the hottest flames known, 
so when the tip-end became very hot this little bit of a 
flame must have become jealous and spoiled the per- 
formance. 

Some one in that distracting moment was mean 
enough to say I ought to have had two gas jets, but I 
should as soon have doubled anything else. Such an 
accident never happened to me before or since. 

" THE CANNON'S OPENING ROAR." 

This lecturer was, in my opinion, the most brilliant 
man I had ever illustrated for. At first I was non- 
plussed at his imperious manner and avalanche of 
words ; but he, too, had his vulnerable points, and I 
finally got the best of him — really a great triumph ! — 
a little the best I ever had in dealing with men. 

At first he seemed to think the best way to deal with 
me was continually to owe me for a lecture or two. 
Finally, he owed me for two lectures, and one was soon 
to be given. 

A friend was sent to get some money, without sue- 



80 MY TRIUMPH. 

cess ; then some one else went, and one lecture, I think, 
was paid for. 

Then I sent him word to pay me for the lecture owed 
and for the next one in advance, and, in the future, to 
pay always in advance or I would not illustrate for 
him any longer. 

That settled it! I was paid. I must have been a 
pretty good hand at the work ; for one would think he 
must have done his best to get someone else; but 
experts were scarce then. 

The most surprising part of it all was that always 
afterward that man treated me in the best manner 
possible. But, then, I never " let go my hold " by 
treating him too respectfully, as was my inclination. 

A GOOD PUNCH. 

Once I met the great man on the Brooklyn Bridge 
cars. I asked him something about the number of 
lectures he had to give, and he named some immense 
number, and I punched him in the ribs as I laughed at 
him. I've often thought of that punch, and how much 
I had become master of the situation. 

A man who had been janitor for this lecturer in a 
certain small place told me that he was once standing 
on the sidewalk, and the lecturer aforesaid beckoned to 
him in an imperious manner, while some rods off, say- 
ing, " See here ! " But the man told me he said to him, 



A CLASH. 81 

" It isn't any further from you to me than from me to 
you ! " So he met his match that time. 

I met him once in Broadway. " I see you are as 
cheeky as ever ! " he said ; and, after a few pleasant 
words, we were about to part; as I held his hand to 
say another word, he pulled it away, saying, " Don't 
hold my hand ! " 

I wasn't altogether pleased with that, so I turned 
and caught up to him and said, " Where are you now, 
doctor? " That was a little indefinite, to be sure, but I 
meant to ask for his address. 

He said, "I am here ! " That was not indefinite. 
" All right," I said, and I turned on my heel and left. 
I can't say that was getting the best of him, exactly, 
but it was better than the first parting. That was the 
last time we met. 

THE PRESIDENT. 

The stereopticon enabled me to travel quite a little, 
as well as come in contact with men of ability and some 
men of even national reputation. The first man I 
illustrated for was not only thoroughly democratic, 
but remarkably genial and kindly, and through his 
kindness and interest I was introduced by him, while 
in Washington, to the President; and I am quite cer- 
tain that he paid for my excursion to Mount Vernon. 

I am glad he is still living, though pretty well along 
6 



82 " SAID THE DEACON, NOW SHE'LL DEW ! " 

in years, and if this book isn't too radical for him, 
maybe he will read these lines. 

I have had the pleasure of reading a few pages to 
him, and he encourages me very much — a remarkably 
bright and intelligent man, and his encouragement 
adds a genial spark of hope. 

He says he thinks he strikes pretty nearly the truth 
in thus reassuring me. In time we shall see how good 
a judge he is. But a genial word is always good, — 
pretty nearly the greatest and the best there is in life. 
He gives the work a strong word of criticism; but 
there, we naturally think he is a little mistaken ! 

PREACHING THAT PAYS. 

But of many incidents with the lantern, none ever 
made me so nervous as the one I am going to relate: 
I was to illustrate a lecture for a preacher of note, 
a ten-thousand-a-year man. I had illustrated several 
lectures for his wife. The church was a fine up-town 
edifice in New York. Now, you know, if I didn't have 
my cylinders I could do nothing — no gas, no light. 

So, at five o'clock, when I left the church for my 
home in Brooklyn, to accommodate the preacher's wife 
by lending a few especially fine views she desired her 
husband to use that evening, I stopped on my way to 
see about the cylinders, and was told they had been 
sent and should have arrived, that they would be on 
hand without fail. 



A STIRRING TIME. 83 

By seven I had returned — no cylinders ! I walked 
up and down outside the church. Seven-fifteen ! I 
must go and see what's the matter ; but cylinder-place 
is well down-town. Will hire a cab. 

The cabman said it would take an hour at least to 
go there and back. I speak to the telegraph-man, but 
he said no return message if no one there, and they 
might be shut up. 

I have no money; I borrow of the lady, who, when 
I said the cylinders were not yet on hand, didn't seem 
to care at all, putting such faith in my being all right, 
or it might have been but the habit of throwing entire 
responsibility on others. 

rush! 

About seven-thirty now ! — lecture begins at eight. I 
go to Elevated, on the run ; get to cylinder-place. They 
had just moved, and, more luck than a little, a work- 
man is there by chance, fixing gas-machines. 

At first he was doubtful about me, but my card with 
the names of really great people on it helped to reas- 
sure him; and, after waiting two or three very long 
minutes, he went up-stairs, tested two cylinders, to see 
if there was enough gas in them, and we set them out- 
side. 

I ran for an expressman, near by. He seemed to 
appreciate I was there under considerable pressure, 
and before I had time to catch my breath and tell him 



84 SAVED ! 

what I wanted, he ordered a man to get his wagon 
around. He would have to charge a little extra, he 
said. I had, fortunately, just borrowed sufficient for 
the emergency. Then I ran back, got the cylinders, 
and saw that they were in the wagon all right. 

Then I took the Elevated. When I got to the church 
I walked along a side aisle from the back to the front 
of the auditorium. There was an audience of, say, 
about fifteen hundred people, listening to the lecturer, 
who had been talking for a few minutes. 

All that saved me was the fact that he had a short 
lecture before the pictures came on. At eight-fifteen 
the cylinders came. 

UNDER WEIGH ! 

It was my practise to have everything ready and the 
picture focussed on the screen before the audience 
arrived; but this time I had the janitor turn the lights 
down slowly, so that I was focussing the picture as the 
lights went out. 

And never a man was there that knew what that 
night I had been through ! — as I think some poet puts 
it. If he don't, I will ! 

That was a lesson ! — poor man's experience, don't 
you see? Who in that fine audience cared a cent for 
me ? Not one ! But suppose " yours truly " had not 
done his part? Then they would have cared for me 



NEVER TO BE FORGOTTEN. 85 

even more than for the ten-thousand-a-year minister, 
who, by the way, — let me say it for dear vengeance's 
sake! — gave the worst talk with pictures I think I ever 
listened to! 

Some time after this I was in a church, talking to 
an old friend and compatriot; it was nearly eight 
o'clock ; a large crowd was assembling. Noticing that 
I was wholly unconcerned, my friend could scarcely 
believe me when I told him the cylinders had not ar- 
rived. 

I had learned a lesson which lasted; and that was, 
when I had done my part fairly and squarely, I would 
not worry or become nervous. This time the cylinders 
came to hand; with that one exception, they always 
did, even though sent several hundred miles from the 
city. 

I might add, to complete the story — which is strictly 
true — of my nervous tension, that the cylinders that 
did not arrive, were sent to the wrong place. 



86 WHAT A PROCESSION ! 



V 



I WAS — as I said in the preceding chapter — illus- 
trating for a ten-thousand-a-year man. Only 
a few can receive such a salary, although it is 
said there are five thousand millionaires in the United 
States ; their incomes are, of course, many times that 
amount. 

ON STILTS. 

This particular man, however, had the big-head. I 
knew two other men of national reputation similarly 
affected. Still, it seems that only a few of our really 
great men have had that weakness. With the others, 
it is simply that they think they are great. They have 
ability, it is true, but they develop an overweening idea 
of what they are ; they are spoiled by too much adula- 
tion and praise. 

If these men are right in thinking so much of them- 
selves, then this book is all wrong ; for they think they 
are the kings of the earth, and that they deserve the 
well-earned deserts of kings, of great ones, of the 



CRACKED CROWNS. 87 

potentates of the world. To them the masses are no- 
bodies ; and if there be no greater equality between 
themselves and the masses than they think there is, 
then it would seem that our opponents have a strong 
argument for leaving things as they are. 

If the great leaders of society — the kings of the 
world — are all they are cracked-up to be, then we may 
say, with considerable truth, that millionaires usually 
are abler and better men than others, and they deserve 
what they get. 

THE POWER BEHIND THE THRONE. 

Let us look into this, if we can, and really see how 
the matter stands. I contend that the poor and the 
obscure are the really great; that they have been the 
real movers of the world, the real patriots, the real 
magnificent personalities, the men and women of prin- 
ciple, the forces that have made the world advance; 
and, as a consequence, that they should be a well-to-do 
portion of the world. 

The leaders, I contend, have had so much applause, 
so much to coddle, pet, and encourage them, so much 
of the enthusiastic encomiums of the world, — and gen- 
erally so much of temporal gain, — that the highest 
and most exalted greatness of character is never at- 
tained by them. 

Now if any one, assenting to this without a word, 



JONES A KING. 



says, " Oh, yes ! I never think the great people of the 
world are just what the world says they are; their 
abilities are always exaggerated," allow me to say, that 
is not my contention at all. 

I grant that the great man has much natural capac- 
ity and skill in his line ; or that President, king, or 
grand duke is a fairly-good man, and that we like to 
give credit for meritorious work by shaking hands 
with them, or with some great reformer whose deeds 
thrill us with a holy frenzy ; but we should also go 
across the way and say: 

THE PLUMB STRIKES BOTTOM. 

" Jones. I want to shake hands with you, here ; for 
forty years you have been struggling with the world; 
neither sickness, poverty, nor any trial has served to do 
more than make a better and greater man of you; 
shake, my friend! Let them talk of their Caesars, 
Alexanders, their Washingtons, or their Shakespeares, 
but you have proved yourself as good a man, as noble 
a man ; therefore, as a factor of a marvelous and ever- 
advancing humanity, you are as genuinely great and 
as practically useful a man as any of these, no matter 
if we all drop down on our knees to worship them." 

You perceive my problem. Simply to abstract a 
"national reputation." Well, then, to proceed: 

Let us take, for illustration and example, a man we 



LINCOLN. 89 

all know almost as well as a brother, especially if we 
have read much of his life and appreciate and under- 
stand the nobility and grandeur of his character, which 
shown out with the every-day actions of the man ; a 
man who was indeed great by all the canons of 
greatness, even that of his censors, critics, and direst 
enemies. That man was Lincoln. 

Not for a moment would we say a word that would 
belittle our highest estimate of his character or career. 

We should rather increase, and vastly increase, that 
estimate; for, not as a representative of inferiors was 
he great, of people with no kindred qualities, but as a 
representative of equals, of millions of human beings 
whose lives, like his own, were a ready sacrifice to 
freedom. 

BOYS MUST BE BOYS. 

We all know that Lincoln started as a poor boy, 
writing on a board shovel and shaving it off for a new 
slate. We all know, too, that somehow or other he 
conceived the idea that he might, and should, become 
more of a man than those he was surrounded by ; that 
he should not be satisfied with the small attainments of 
the poor boys around where he lived, but should aspire 
to something more. 

The other boys in that neighborhood had no such 
aspiration or feeling. Do you think it would be any 
better for the world if all the boys had that kind 



90 NANCY HANKS. 

of desire ? Why, there would be no boyhood at all ; the 
boys would be all old men. It is all right to have one 
once in a while take such a course ; for he can breathe 
in the natural atmosphere of boyhood, even if he 
doesn't enter into it fully himself. 

Boys are boys ; and I think the boys in that neigh- 
borhood were just as good or just as bad as boys 
usually are, and they had a jolly good time of it, and 
were not quite so sober-sided as Lincoln, — surely noth- 
ing against them, nor was it in his favor. 

Of course, it was to a degree only that he was less 
boyish than other boys ; but it was to a degree ; for he 
was more studious under the inspiration, first, of his 
mother, then of as noble a step-mother. Again, very 
early he gets the idea into his little head that he might 
be President some day. What a good boy ! 

Let us see ; President : " guess I'll have to study and 
make a man of myself.'' 

AMOUNTED TO MEN. 

What was the matter with the men around where he 
lived? Well, they were not Presidents — that is one 
sure thing. Were they good ? Oh yes ! they might be 
good enough, so far as they were concerned ; but they 
didn't have the education ; they only lived in a little 
back-woods' community, and didn't amount to much. 

But will his character be any better for being a Pres- 



ADAM'S OCCUPATION. 91 

ident than for being a good farmer? Hardly. Any 
more generous? Any more noble? Any more force? 
Hardly. 

"A pnrty President you will make! " say the girls 
of the neighborhood; for, boy-like, and also no doubt 
as a joke, he tells of his ambition. The girls were 
right. How could such a great, lanky boy be Presi- 
dent! 

Finally, we see him as a flat-boat man. Why not a 
farmer, like so many others of his neighborhood? 
Surely, farming was as good an employment as boat- 
ing. Well, he didn't care for farming and farming 
didn't care for him, so a-boating he went! and there 
were good times. 

A BOOMERANG. 

We have two rules to go by : one for ordinary mor- 
tals, the other for the extraordinary kind of human 
beings : one to use before, and the other after, great- 
ness is attained. 

When the son of an ordinary man, instead of work- 
ing like a good, steady individual on the farm, works 
in an intermittent manner, we say he is not doing right, 
that he is becoming a worthless fellow, whom we 
heartily despise for his laziness. 

But if he becomes great, we say, " Oh, well, that 
was only his way ! " It's like the engineer who runs 



92 PLACARDED ! 

on the " green," — as they call a half-danger signal ; if 
he makes good time, all right, but if there is an acci- 
dent, wo be it to him ! 

The position that a man occupies toward society is 
what makes him great. We don't think of calling a 
man great who has not attained, as we say, distinc- 
tion. A lazy boy invented one of the greatest appli- 
ances of the steam engine, — an automatic steam cut-off 
— and is discharged for his laziness! Whether true 
to history or not, the story is true to fact in thousands 
of cases. If the inventor had simply associated his 
name with his invention, the world would have called 
him great; but he performed the work, although he 
missed being canonized, and was denied any profit. 
I'm not sure but that it ought to be called " Inventors' 
justice! " 

A NEW DEGREE. 

Society is the measure of greatness. This great con- 
glomeration of individuals, — running like ants, hither 
and thither; running over each other's tracks in an 
interminable, ceaseless, and, it would seem, useless 
manner, — this society may confer the degree of great- 
ness upon men simply because it has numbers. 

Society can not only confer this degree, but to its 
great men it delegates power. When a man is known 
to a million men, he commands, to a certain extent, 
that number of men in the lines of his greatness. 



MEN MADE TO ORDER ! 93 

He directs, instructs, or commands under their su- 
perior command, dictation, or desire, and helps them 
to unify their own desires expressed through him. 

But numbers do more than cause the great man to 
command; they compel the direction of his life. 

All great men that ever lived worked along the 
lines that the people wanted them to work on, or they 
would never have been heard of. 

Take a great astronomer of some past age. His 
fame was caused by the fact that large numbers knew 
him, and these numbers focussed upon him the natural 
desire in human nature to advance, thus giving him a 
mighty power to check superstitious ideas. 

And the reason his work made him great was be- 
cause he either consciously or unconsciously worked 
along the lines of the people's desire for knowledge. 

But when the old-timers and new-timers have 
clashed, the fact of his being the eye-and-ear-center of 
so many, has often meant his martyrdom. 

NUMERICAL STRENGTH. 

Now look at Lincoln. He could have done nothing 
but for the greatness that society thrust upon him. 
Not only that, but he couldn't have led society by as 
much as a single hair, except by its own dictation. 

Suppose he had said, " Here, I am a great man, I 
can do great things. I shall down this whole business 
of war at once." 



94 KNEW THE PEOPLE. 

Could he have done anything? Not a mite! He 
had to do what the people made him do, or get out of 
office ; and get out quick. But, more than that, he was 
made by society, or compelled to make himself as 
society wanted him to, to have ever filled the position. 

Likely as not he would not have been worth his 
board as a farmer; and certainly he didn't prove a 
great success as a store-keeper, but steering down the 
Ohio, in his flatboat, and leading a careless, easy life, 
he tells the boys such good stories that he attains to 
the first essential of greatness, from the standpoint of 
reputation ; that is, he gets an audience ; — more than 
just a few people to know him, and he to know them. 

At last, having struggled to do what society bid him 
to, in order to fill its position, — that is, become intelli- 
gent in its ways, know the world, and love the people, 
and understand their hearts, — society now says, " You 
say the word, and we will do the rest." 

FELLOWSHIP VERSUS WORSHIP. 

Again, let us say that the justice of this argument 
does not take a particle off of the true ideas of Lin- 
coln's greatness; it, rather, adds immensely to it. 

When we say Lincoln was a great man, what do we 
mean? The grandeur of life of any human being is 
to be great in character. What more? He did his 
work well, and was world-renowned. 



TRUE GRIT. 95 

Let us turn out the stone image and bring in the 
neighbor and friend; let us remember him not as a 
figure-head, but as a man, a man of keen insight, who 
could discern afar the lines on which to work, if he 
was ever to be President — the lines of society's de- 
mands. 

But far above all that toadying estimate, guided by 
his position and power, is the simple fact: he was a 
noble specimen of the human family. 

The greatest leader of men must be the very best 
possible in himself; by which I mean that, as a man 
among men, he was a square man, neither better nor 
worse than many other men just, fair, and square ; but 
an all-around good man, with failings and noble qual- 
ities like thousands of others ; all in all, a good man. 

" HEARTS OF OAK." 

" That's just what the people demand. Your great 
leader can't be a little, miserable, scheming political 
trickster. Why? Because the people themselves are 
greater at heart than he, and they quickly discern true 
worth. They know and feel genuine strength and 
sympathy, nobility of soul, grandeur of character of 
those who are like they are. 

The people are good, no matter what you say or 
think of this individual or that who gets the best of 
you. We must mix a little god-like sympathy with our 
estimate. 



96 EDISON. 

Upon the average, the bad is overbalanced by the 
good, else we wouldn't advance ; and if true of the 
average, why not true of every individual, had we the 
understanding to comprehend them? The people, 
then, recognize these better qualities in some men, as 
against the hidden ones in others. 

At any rate, it is simply a fact that the greater the 
leader, the more nearly he attains to what might be 
termed the standard character of the times — and that 
would seem to hold good for a Caesar, an Alexander, 
or a Napoleon. 

A Nero must have represented a brutal people — 
to-day we wouldn't abide him for an instant. Even 
an inventor must have his age. Put Edison with his 
phonograph in Nero's time, and off his head would 
have come! 

Lincoln, the people's greatest representative, had an 
all-powerful sympathy and an all-powerful keenness 
of insight into men, pounded into him by tough ex- 
perience. 

" 'twas whispered in heaven, 

AND MUTTERED IN HELL." 

This good man had the good sense to act out just 
what I am saying. He had the position, he had the 
training; and now he had the next thing: that is, he 
never made a move but he was sure he heard the still 
small voice of the people whispering in his ear to do it. 



SERVANT AND KING. 97 

And, in this respect, he had the most acute ear for 
hearing of one man in a thousand. 

The people then did their part, choosing their own 
pathway, and centering their efforts through their 
guidance of the great man. And on these lines, with- 
out wavering a particle, we have the greatest war of 
modern times. 

In the South it was precisely the same as in the 
North, only the South had no man quite so great as 
Lincoln, because it had no man who so thoroughly ex- 
pressed the last desire of the people, nor whose 
patriotism rose to so high a point of unselfish denial 
for the sake of the cause. 

To be at the top, and, at the same time, to forget 
oneself as if he were at the bottom — would seem, let us 
say, to be the highest point of greatness of character, 
united with greatness of position: Lincoln, therefore, 
came as near that point as any man could. 

" OYES ! OYES ! OYES ! " 

And now let us ask, What is the use of all this argu- 
ment about greatness and position ? — merely to prove 
that every day we are passing Lincolns on the street; 
to show that the people are vastly superior to the usual 
belief in them; to stand for manhood and not for 
caste ; not to belittle true greatness by cheating human- 
ity ; not to uphold the undemocratic, superstitious, self- 
7 



98 INVINCIBLE. 

conceit of position, as against the grandeur of the 
human soul. 

When the people's desire is strong enough, it ushers 
in, ever and always, the champion of that desire; and 
he never did, and never will, and never can, by any 
possibility, do anything but what they want him to do. 
His greatest power consists in his focussing their 
ideas, expressing their wishes, expressing the united 
thought or wish of the people better than other in- 
dividuals can express and focus them. 

But it is the people's wish — these masses, these all 
of us — that must be carried out ; and the people's rep- 
resentative simply holds the wand that we tell him to 
hold ; while we do the work ourselves. 

Our Lincolns are great in character only insomuch 
as they are noble men ; great in name only by society's 
making; great in power for good or evil only by so- 
ciety's power for good or evil. 

OUR SHARE OF GREATNESS. 

Stripping from greatness all that which is reminis- 
cent of our barbarian delight — its grandeur, eclat, and 
magnificence of power — we then may say, all this we 
must place to the credit of the people. 

Then we may shake hands with the street-sweeper 
or scavenger, and say, " As far as that greatness which 
made Lincoln's name shine before the world is con- 



BLINDED BY OUR OWN LIGHT. 99 

cerned, you are as well-entitled to consideration as he ; 
for that was your gift, and my gift. 

" As far as that greatness which made the world love 
him is concerned, you may have every jot and tittle of 
a right to that as well as he." What more ? Well, we 
are willing to acknowledge that nature does a great 
deal for men, and that she did much for Lincoln, as she 
did for Napoleon, Mozart, Michael Angelo, or Shakes- 
peare. 

But we have, with one and all, been so dazzled by 
what we, the people, confer upon them, that we have 
forgotten ourselves, and their one talent has been mul- 
tiplied infinitely beyond its true value. 

We conclude, finally, that, in the majesty of the 
human soul, there is no greatness beyond true nobility 
of mind and heart, and that nature leaves men without 
the stamp of consequence, however marvelously en- 
dowed ; and as both great worth ancl great power are of 
the people, let the great man take his seat with his 
neighbors, lucky if found of equal worth. 

NO BALLAST. 

What we want to do is to puncture, to a slight ex- 
tent, this puff-ball of pomposity that makes some peo- 
ple think they are of so much account in this world, 
compared with their less-successful neighbors. 

I don't contend that all this is teetotally correct, but 



loo LUCK OR PLUCK. 

I do sincerely believe that it is correct in showing that 
these few people of the world are greatly mistaken as 
to their merits. 

The reason I let myself down a little on a straight 
out-and-out contention that it is absolutely and exactly 
the truth, is because there must always be some truth 
on the opposite side. But we have set our eyes so long 
upon this same opposite side that it is warped out of all 
proportion to a just idea of the truth. 

Human nature is prone to pile credit mountains high 
upon the leader; the historians do, the papers do, we 
all incline to. But the mountain-peak is on the other 
side, — the side of the people, and they the historian 
quietly drops out of notice. 

There is still another point that should not be lost 
sight of in this controversy as to greatness, that is — 
luck. 

QUOTED BY THE LUCKY ONES. 

People like to quote Garfield's saying, " a pound of 
pluck is worth a ton of luck ; " but Garfield may not 
have been a very good guide on that subject, and he 
may never have given his own luck half the credit he 
should. 

It takes a good deal of pluck to acknowledge our 
own luck: for we so like to think we are self-made; 
that we accomplish everything through our own energy 
of character and hard work. 






ONLY ONE AT A TIME. 101 

But where would Lincoln have been if he had been 
born ten, fifteen, or twenty years later? The oppor- 
tunity for a Lincoln was when he lived ; and it has not 
been since nor before, unless it was in the time of the 
Revolution, and then we have a Washington. 

Lincoln was just at the right age, in the flush of a 
vigorous manhood. Suppose there were other thou- 
sands born at the same time; nevertheless, there was 
only one such position to be filled, and Lincoln was 
the lucky man. And such a noble step-mother! The 
chances are a thousand to one that without her wise 
encouragement, and at the time most needed, he never 
would have been heard of ; as surely luck as for Queen 
Isabella to be on the throne when Columbus wanted 
to make his great journey. 

People like to term it Providence, but you might as 
well say any chance or opportunity is Providence : one 
is a little bigger, a little more important, in our eyes 
than the other; that is all. 

A mere turn of your hand, and Seward might have 
been President; but it happened by good luck that 
Lincoln had friends that not only believed in him, but 
were almost as astute as he. 

WORKED LIKE BEAVERS. 

These friends knew that if they succeeded in get- 
ting Lincoln nominated, they must work for it to the 



102 MARK TWAIN. 

last drop of their blood. And they did work, night 
and day, and they kept it up like warriors who are 
fighting for their lives. 

Does any one achieve success without many lucky 
circumstances thrown in his way? circumstances that 
have turned the scale in his favor and have left some 
one else out in the cold ? Surely not. 

And just such turns, if they had happened to go the 
other way, might have found the lucky ones, with all 
their pluck and ability, out in the cold themselves ; and 
most people would have thought they had neither pluck 
nor ability. 

Andrew Carnegie, as a mere boy, makes a lucky 
strike of twenty thousand dollars, else, with all his 
philosophy and money-making ability, he might have 
lived and died a poor man. 

Mark Twain loses in the mines ; and by a lucky 
chance he loses, too, else the world might never have 
heard that there was a Mark Twain to make it roll 
over with laughter ; and he might have died a million- 
aire, " unknown, unhonored, and unsung ! " 



SUCCESS. 103 



VI 



IN one line I have always had fair success ; some- 
times even way above fair, so that I know ex- 
actly how success affects one. 
You feel very important; of the very best you can 
do, you say, " Oh ! it's a mere nothing ; anybody could 
do the same if they tried," forgetting, of course, the 
hours and hours you have spent in hard work. 

A HERO. 

Isn't it ecstatic! People look at you in surprise. 
They say, " How wonderful ! What a memory you 
have ! Who was your teacher ? Is it hard work ? " 
Then they whisper — just loud enough for you to hear 
as you pass out, — " Isn't he splendid ! My ! I wish I 
could recite as he does ! " 

Yes, it's recitations. Many a pleasant incident do 
they bring to mind. Sometimes they were received 
with a genuine ovation of applause, which delighted 
the heart ! In a country school I see a burly old fellow 
fairly rolling over with laughter. What jolly fun to 
have a whole roomfull of little children convulsed 
with laughter — I'm sure they didn't understand, but 



104 ENTHUSIASM. 

they laughed, nevertheless. Once I came in late with 
the lecturer of the evening. It was in a church, and I 
was well acquainted with the minister, to whom I had 
given a sample of my work in private. 

At once I was asked to recite. I did so, and the 
minister led the applause. It shows the effect of in- 
fluence; for I was literally stormed with applause. 

You may be sure I won't say but that I did my part 
pretty well; but that minister, sitting near the front, 
was so enthusiastic that the rest all caught the spirit 
of his example, and did likewise. 

" AS FOR THE BLUDGEONS, 
THEY PERFORMED LIKE PILE-DRIVERS." 

If there is but one in the audience who is not afraid 
to applaud, and is full of enthusiasm, it often means 
the difference between success and failure. 

Still, applause is not always a sure sign; for there 
are some people who will not applaud, who, neverthe- 
less, will be willing to tell you afterward that they 
thoroughly enjoyed themselves ; but applause reacts on 
people and makes them enjoy themselves more. 

People, however, are affected differently. One 
minister whom I illustrated for, told me he asked a 
young woman in the place where he was staying, how 
she liked his lecture ; and she told him she had not had 
time to think it over! I wonder if she had to think 
over the illustrations., to be sure she cared for them! 



AT THE CANNON'S MOUTH! 105 

Now for thrilling experiences in the book-business ! 
Yes, I had to take my turn with Washington and 
Napoleon as a canvasser! 

There is freedom for you ! No " boss," no foreman. 
Your hours your own. None to find fault. You are 
your own proprietor, treasurer, and paymaster ! Some 
will say they couldn't ; more, they wouldn't. What 
lack ye yet, say I, but courage? 

That's what's wanted : get down to the hard-pan of 
courage ; put on the armor of God, against the wrath 
of men, lions and bears, tigers, guns, and wars ! Let 
the bashful lover not fear the beautiful maiden ! Let 
your heart not quail : iron from top to toe you must be, 
copper-ribbed and buttressed round about. 

WELL-SHAKEN. 

And if you are timid, and old Nature, in the shape 
of the looks and the surroundings of men and women, 
doesn't make you tremble like an aspen, then you will 
not have been in this fellow-mortal's shoes, that's all. 

The violence of such experience must, indeed, be 
proportionate to the sensitiveness of the individual. 
Fortunate is it that all are not oversensitive. We have 
even met those who delighted in this kind of work. 
Undoubtedly it is a fact that there are those who make 
from five thousand to even twenty-five thousand dol- 
lars a year at this business. 

A moderate success — somewhat under twenty-five 



106 STEELED. 

thousand a year — was ours. Often have I heard it 
stated that no profession required greater ability — to 
which we gladly subscribe ! 

What profession offers such a practical training in 
the study of human nature? One learns to read faces 
as he would the pages of a book. And friends ! I 
can now see a farmer jumping out of his wagon and 
running across the road to shake hands with me on 
a cold frosty morning — after not only taking my book, 
but entertaining me in the most generous fashion at 
dinner the day before. 

"a sharp medicine,, but a sure cure!" 

But the galling experiences are all right for the 
development of character, knowledge, and intelli- 
gence. Shaving by shaving, it whittles down the char- 
acter, till it makes it a dear business to be a man ! 

Some of the people whom he meets ! Stuck-up be- 
cause a clerk in a bank ; while, likely as not, the presi- 
dent of the bank treats you with genial courtesy and 
hearty good-will. Some preachers, so pleasant! 
You'd join their church just because you loved them! 
Others, sleek, cold, imperious. You meet all kinds, 
rich and poor, intelligent and ignorant. And how you 
dream of coming back some day to give some who 
have treated you meanly, their just deserts, and re- 
warding the kind ones as you would reward the angels 
themselves if vou could meet them. 



TAKES THE LEAD. 107 

Probably no one in the community gives it more for 
its money than the agent for good literature. Ahead 
of all the professions and next to the school-teacher 
does his work deserve to be placed. Boys and girls 
are the school-teacher's care; but the well-trained 
agent inspires anew the dormant desire for knowledge 
in those who have grown too old for school. At the 
very least, he popularizes education ; the spirit of re- 
form goes with him. So here's three cheers for the 
book-agent ! 

TIME TO GET UP ! 

When a boy myself, I may have let the other boy 
run away with my skates, or took to my heels as the 
safest way out of a difficulty ; but the poor boy and 
the poor young man can't allow himself long the 
easiest ways. 

But I could face the music, I must tell you, though 
it took my heart out ; and more times than a few have 
I stood before men trembling so that I could not speak 
without disclosing in my voice how nervous I was; 
yet on I went, nervous or not. 

Duty was there : and duty was superior to the fear 
within. The nervousness also was there, but we took 
our nervousness and all right ahead with us. 

Who has ever done good work under such circum- 
stances? You may well say, No one. And although 
it is possible to force oneself to do anything utterly re- 



108 THE BATTLE WAGED. 

pugnant to his nature, yet in that line he must ever be 
distanced by those who have a different disposition. 
Let us be thankful for variety. But we had the 
courage of duty, shall we not say? 

As to success ! — ours was moderate ; but, reckoned 
by the few times of exceptional results, we were a 
surprise to those highly skilled in the business. When 
you must conquer, you must ; that is all ; and that's 
why men become great. It's a case of kill or cure! 
But their sons, living on easier lines, enjoy life more, 
and never are heard of ! 

A COLLEGIATE DRILL. 

But the great man has his reward. Think of a sale 
of a million of these books ; and becoming greater and 
greater with each book sold ! 

At odd intervals, and extending over a number of 
years, our sales amounted to some eight or ten hun- 
dred books. It meant an experience, an education ; to 
us it seemed severe, but as, from day to day, we meet 
men who " never surrender," but cheerfully accept the 
" odds against them " in life, we feel that our lot has 
been cast with an army that, from the foundation of 
the world, ever advances. 

As this army gets its " lucky strokes " mostly by 
" hard licks," we find ourselves " marching along," 
surmounting many an obstacle, and contending with 
" the art preservative of arts." 



A SLOW FIRE. 109 

If you have ever been in a printing office you must 
have noticed there long alleys of racks to hold the 
type-cases in. In these alleys you see three, four or 
a dozen men ranged side by side. When you have set 
up your type the foreman may bring you your proof, 
— that is, a print of the type, — and the mistakes made 
in setting may be marked on it. 

This foreman took, it seemed to me, particular pains 
to come along with my proofs and stand — and you 
know there is hardly a punishment worse than waiting 
for the punishment — and look to see if he could not 
find some mistakes he might speak of. 

NO COMPROMISE. 

He found them ! and he would always tell me of 
them in a way that " went right home." Yet I was 
determined to be honest and please that foreman. 
Was it not one principle against the human combina- 
tion of principles ? 

Why, I remember once, when there was but little 
work on hand, he gave me what is called a time- job, — 
paid by the day or week, — my usual work being on 
piece. 

" Now," I said to myself, " I will work exactly the 
same as on piece, and do my duty." I did, and off of 
that job I got very quickly. 

But business is not run that wav — however nice it 



no NOT AN EASY BERTH. 

would be to have it so : and if I had acted like the 
rest of the men working on piece, and had taken my 
time, it would have been all right : time would have 
been taken up, and the foreman satisfied. 

Once I spelled birth berth. What a great fuss 
the foreman made about it — always polite, not loud in 
speech. " Go back to your berth, not birth," said he, 
spelling the words out. How different his speech, had 
he thought it would be printed ! 

For one like myself, — whose mildness of manner 
and too-courteous ways never, in those yet rather boy- 
ish days, allowed others to talk like that to him, nor he 
to talk back, — it was pretty hard to bear. 

RETRIBUTION. 

I wasn't an Andrew Jackson, who would have given 
the foreman a great deal better than he got; but old 
Time's answer may beat the sharpest retort. Men's 
harsh words are often a chevaux-de-frise to their own 
advancement. 

Maybe you think I exaggerate the occurrence. Not 
at all. Suppose the foreman had sworn a " colossal 
nine-jointed oath " at me. Possibly he would have 
found there were " blows to take as well as to give." 

But he aimed better: there is such a thing as great 
skill in making our words cut deep ; but they will 
never cut at all unless they touch us so that we feel 
them. 



RESIGNED. in 

Let us follow this incident a little farther — it may 
interest and amuse you. I felt compelled to relinquish 
my portfolio! 

In that office no one entered without much in- 
fluence ; and no one, I suppose, except those whose 
parents were members of the firm, ever came in under 
better auspices than I : from a man of national repu- 
tation, thus making six I have met personally — let's 
see ; with myself, that makes seven, doesn't it ? 

You see, the way of it was, I asked a minister — with 
whom we, as a family, were acquainted and who was 
himself a man of reputation and of standing in the 
city — to write to this man. 

A GREAT EDITOR. 

The letter had the right effect, and the gentleman, 
who was very pleasant and unpretentious, went per- 
sonally into the printing department to see if I could 
not obtain work there — a true democrat! Most men 
consider their influence too sacred to exert it to any 
personal inconvenience. 

Upon quitting the office I went to work at once at 
canvassing, and in three months' time I was, as it 
were, pretty well steeled to " meet the foe." 

Then I went back to the same office. No more hard 
work for me now ; no more eleven hours a day to keep 
the foreman in good humor. I worked steadily but 
easily, held my head as high as anybody; stayed there 



ii2 FACT VERSUS THEORY. 

for three months; and never a word of fault was 
found with me ! 

That shows what it is to know and act a little as 
the world acts, and not to follow too closely after an 
ideal. There is nothing more useful in the world than 
an ideal, if mixed with a little rock-bottomed common 
sense. 

For the present, we are all in this world — a fact not 
to be forgotten — and if we think we can run it on a 
plane of goodness more perfect than it desires, old 
Dame Nature — in the shape of men and circumstances 
— will take us and our theories in hand, and give us 
such a trouncing that we will be glad to walk in a 
line less true to some ideal or principle, and more true 
to common sense. 

The fault-finding of the foreman was, in general, 
the cause of my leaving the first time. As I was 
going I went to the proof-reader and asked him if my 
proofs were much worse than the others. 

" Why, no," he said, " I thought they were a little 
better than the average, rather than otherwise." 

LEVEL BEST. 

The real reason, then, for getting rid of me was 
simply my eternal attempt to do my very best, thereby 
utterly ignoring the more independent and common- 
sense method of the ordinary man. 

As I said, at the end of three months I quitted the 



ROYALTY STEPS DOWN. 113 

place, this time with a clear record, and of my own 
free will. And I never went back except to see some 
of the men, and even to see the foreman. 

And he? Yes; I had lost all animosity for him, 
would even have done him a good turn if I could ; but 
he had got out of his fine position, and was only 
a proof-reader, poor man. And this had evidently 
taken him down a peg or two ; the fine airs of a fore- 
man were no longer for him. 

No longer, I suspect, did he dare come into the 
composing-room after dinner with the strongest cigar 
I ever knew any one to smoke. That was royalty! 
Also against the rules ; but even he did not dare break 
them except at noon. 

BLUE BLOOD. 

There wasn't much of a workingman about him : 
for a generation back the blood of a foreman ran in 
his veins, and we workingmen might well look upon 
him as master ; for, " by the great hornspoon ! " was 
he not in command? 

Who is this w T orkingman we are writing these inci- 
dents for? are caring so much about? whose mighty 
works we have marveled over ? whom we have worked 
with, talked with, lived with, and think we are willing 
to sell our life for? whom we believe in and honor? 

What is he? Who is he? Are we a crank and a 



H4 WHO! 

fool to believe in him? Should we long ago have 
stopped such folly? stopped asking and asking and 
asking whether the working-man was abused or not? 

Should we long ago have left these problems to 
those who are foolish enough — as we have been — 
to spoil the fun of their own living, by caring much 
about the living of others? 

Should we long ago have said, " Out on this non- 
sense, if the workingman is a man he will get along, 
and if he is not, our bothering about him won't help 
him? 

WHY. 

"Who is he? Is he a mere ne'er-do-well, the off- 
scouring of the earth? Why doesn't he become rich? 
Why doesn't he learn a profession ? Why does he stick 
in the mud everlastingly, if there is anything in him? 

" Why does he drive your carts, and shovel your 
streets? Why does he dress in poor clothes, and look 
grimy and dusty and dirty? 

" Why does he pitch coal into mighty furnaces in the 
holds of big vessels, the thermometer at the boiling 
point? Isn't there better, easier, and finer work to do? 

" Look at him going along our fine street, his pipe 
in his mouth, smoking bad tobacco at five, six, or 
seven o'clock in the morning! 

" Why doesn't he go to work at eleven o'clock, like 






CARYATIDES. 115 

a banker, and quit at two, then complain of the ill 
effects of hard work? 

" Great Scott ! What's the matter with him ? Ten, 
twelve, fourteen, and maybe sixteen and even eighteen 
hours a day for a day's work ! Work must be his sole 
ambition, — his one idea of living. 

"Living? Yes; living where he does live, in a 
smoke-stack, called a house; in boxes, called rooms. 

" How does he live ? Packed like sardines ; and he 
calls it a home. 

" What of such as these ? Did the Lord make them 
for men and women? They must be all stone, wood, 
mortar, iron — not men and women; not the people 
you're standing up for; you forget yourself. 

ANACHRONISTIC. 

" My dear friend, these are a race of creatures born 
to be the toad-stools of the rest of the race of real 
men and women — ' alcholic selection ' fixes them, and 
gives good men a chance to live. 

" You are right : they are a soulless, miserable, shift- 
less, thriftless set, worthy of the scorn of the fine- 
souled, high-minded, cultivated, cultured, artistic, and 
well-trained man or woman. 

" Let them go; the ' quicker the sooner/ and we will 
reform and get them and their ways out of our mind ; 
while we think of and associate with the higher classes 



n6 BEGIN THE FRAY. 

— ' of whom wc are which.' But, first, by way of re- 
freshment, we'll say a word in their favor." 

A word in their favor ! What a speech ! Never ! I 
am not so high and mighty that I can speak to or of 
workingmen with patronage. No, Sir! they have 
made a civilization, their suffering is the initiative of 
the world's progress, " we writers " but tell their story. 

First, then, they have temperance : don't care if they 
consume more whiskey than bread and meat and but- 
ter and cheese and everything else. Again : first, they 
have temperance, though your temperance-orator 
grows white and red by turns as he denies it, and 
flashes before me miles of figures and statistics ; I say, 
the workingman stands above all other classes of so- 
ciety as a temperate man. 

ADAMANT. 

You might as well deny that the world moves round 
the sun — it's simply the plain truth; the assertion is as 
sound as a rock. 

How could they do all the work in the world unless 
they were temperate ? They do the work, and they are 
temperate. 

It's the idler that is not temperate. The working- 
man breathes temperance with every stroke of his ham- 
mer, with every brick he lays down, with every stone 
he puts into place, with every piece of wood he saws. 

Is he not obliged to work? Is not necessity push- 



ARMED. 117 

ing him? Is not his own production tugging at his 
heels and saying : 

" Stop here, my friend ; stop there, my friend ; if 
you go too far you're ' a goner,' and no mistake — 
bread and butter, life itself, is yours ; your loved ones 
are yours ; all the Heaven there is in this world for 
you is yours by temperance." 

Does the idler, and especially the well-to-do idler, 
begin to have any such sermon dinged into his ears, 
day and night? Does he begin to see the results of 
such a sermon every day that he lives? No! 

" LOOK AROUND YOU." 

And all the art of man, and all the accumulations 
of wealth, and its constant augmentation, all the var- 
ied industries of our time are but the composite testi- 
mony to the inevitable consequence of the steadiness, 
the persistence, the energy, and the temperance of the 
workingman. 

Another word: he is the wisest of men! 

Now you call a halt; now you say, this is going a 
little too far; we can stand a good deal, but this is 
coming a little too strong! 

Truth is always strong, but not always an agreeable 
dose. Still, it has to be taken now and then. 

This is also a plain case. Wherein does wisdom 
consist ? Doesn't it consist, for the most part, in lead- 
ins: a wholesome life? 



n8 HANDIWORK. 

Right there let us stop, — wholesome life ; that's wis- 
dom ! And who are the wise men of this world, wise 
men and women, if not those whose wholesome lives 
have enabled them to build the works of man? Tell 
me that. 

Who people the earth? Whose minds and bodies 
are attuned to this world, as a world to live in, to be 
healthful and wholesome in? 

THE FORERUNNER. 

I tell you there is no sign of wisdom better than 
hearty workingmen and women. They are an army 
that can point to a wise ancestry, who, battling with 
the New World's condition, have enabled this genera- 
tion to build upon their experience and to settle wisely 
problems that were the dream of ages past. 

Don't talk to me about Solomon ! A man or woman 
in vigorous health, doing their goodly work for a 
living, are wisdom's children. And the wisdom that 
inspires to industry, inspires also to wisdom, and the 
working-man has the double inheritance. 

Now for the final test ! Now shall we " cross the 
Rubicon." Now is our reputation " in Chancery." 
This time we are to pass all records. 

We hardly dare assert the claim ; we, rather, timidly 
at first, ask the question, hoping to grow stronger as 
we ascend the scale of the grander facts of the world, 
— as against our fancied thoughts. 



HERE! 119 

Who are the most intelligent people? 

Stand up, Mr. Lawyer, and be counted ! You dicker 
with a few people ; you get your name in the papers ; 
your picture appears in your various and pretty atti- 
tudes ; and once in a while you say something that 
really is sensible. 

We will say you are intelligent. Gracious! you 
must be, to get such enormous pay for so little work ; 
but, take it all in all, they do tell me there are so many 
lawyers that when the pay goes round, it will barely 
make an average for a good hod-carrier. Horrible! 
how could they adjust quarrels — or help to make 
them, to keep business good — without their " three 
squares " a day ! 

NONE FINER. 

Next, we have the ministers ! — petted too much, as 
a class. They, of course, are intelligent. How could 
a man go through college and be well-ground out for 
a minister — knowing how to begin a sermon, how to 
end it, where to put in the enthusiasm, and how many 
divisions to make — without knowing a heap? Yes, 
he's all right. 

Now for the doctor. Up to the front he steps with 
great alacrity to be counted. He hasn't studied medi- 
cine for nothing. If you think he doesn't know all 
that is worth knowing, listen while he says a few 
words. He is a perfect elocutionist; and reads char- 



120 ALL HOURS. 

acter? Why, he knows human nature from a to z — 
that's the way he makes his money. 

As to saving your lives, why, all the world would 
have passed off the earth long ago if it wasn't that 
the doctor was called in in the very nick of time to 
bring you round all right. 

He'll tell you that himself : it must be true. We 
must give him a front seat in the intelligent row. 

W r e might call up the business man, but he is too 
engaged and too important. Besides, there is no use 
putting questions to him. We are all sure that he is 
intelligent, for he gets what we all want. How could 
he get so much if he didn't know how? 

Four are enough. We will now take a step back 
into history for a second. 

THE FLAT WORLD. 

What a miserable, poor old tramp of a man was 
Columbus ! Poor old fellow ! the " dull monks and 
ignorant monarchs " — excuse me ; they were the 
learned ones of their day, the men at the head of 
affairs : leaders, men of means and influence ; no ignor- 
ance there — not for a moment can you say it. 

But there was that miserable Columbus. Think of 
him ; what a dull man he must have been, begging, 
actually begging — look out the window and see if he 
isn't at your very door! 



UPSIDE DOWN. 121 

Well, that poor, wretched man, with his curious story 
about the world being round — crank ! well I guess ! 

And that's the man the world to-day says was one 
of the greatest and most intelligent of the men of 
his time. Surely, the world is walking on its head. 

All those brilliant men — for all the world, like our 
doctors, preachers, lawyers, and men of influence — 
all, all were as a pinch of snuff to this one man, when 
it comes to rock-bottom intelligence. 

Look up the record again. Twelve apostles: poor, 
wretched men; no learning, no college instruction, 
no influence ; workingmen, fishermen ; what can you 
say of them ? 

See all the great people of that time ; all the wealth, 
aristocracy, magnificence, and pomp; great kings, 
great statesmen, and orators. 

And look at these twelve poor men— a forlorn hope 
as against the fine ones. 

ROME FALLS. 

What's the verdict ? That these Twelve were wiser, 
abler, and better than any of their contemporaries; 
and more intelligent, a thousand-fold more. 

Isn't the case settled ? All these brilliant people who 
seem to be running the world to-day, will, in future 
generations, be quoted as " dull and ignorant," and 
some obscure ones whom the wise ones of to-day think 
are of no account, will be quoted as the truly great. 



122 ENCOMIUMS. 

And let not men drilled to the automatic tread of a 
conventional business-type, laugh at the opposers of 
Columbus ; let them weep for their comrades in ignor- 
ance, — eminent in all ages as implacable enemies of 
progress. 

BLIND. 

The simple truths of this world have been covered 
to them — though we pay dearly for their collegiate 
education, which the remorseless verdict of time doth 
say is little less than fossilized ignorance. 

Intelligence has ever advanced upon necessity ; and 
the casuistry of the aesthete, and the scholasticism of 
the conservative, may well look to their laurels, as 
against those who know the true meaning of physical 
toil. 

Look at the bare-footed Socrates ! It's hardship, not 
luxury, that forces wisdom into men's brains. 

Ah ! many a time have I been in a poor man's home 
in some country place ; saw his little well-used library, 
and found him to have a scope of knowledge that 
would make the average business man ashamed of 
himself. 

But your little lawyer, preacher, business man, and 
author — this tart criticism will be nullified by the 
sale of our first million books — all think they know 
so much with their little one-sided, lofty brain accom- 
plishments, and the papers to applaud their greatness. 



GREAT QUESTIONS. 123 

But, hark ye! How about the great accomplish- 
ments of this world ? and the great questions that shall 
move the world and men for the grander advancement 
of human kind ? 

When there is a Revolution, and we decide to cut 
loose from an old and effete form of government, the 
people, in the majesty of a greater intelligence than 
our little great men ever possess, decide it. 

When the suppression of slavery, as a great inher- 
ent wrong and a curse to real advancement, is the ques- 
tion, the people unflinchingly decide it. 

Is it a question of the Corn Laws, or of some Magna 
Charta, or some great religious movement ? the people 
put their heads together and decide, one way or an- 
other. 

JUDGED. 

Not the two-penny questions are put to them, but the 
greatest questions that the mind of man can conceive. 
And their judgment is its settlement. 

Where's your intelligence now ? Who shall stand up 
to be counted ? Who now have the right to say, "I'm 



a man 



We leave the palm of intelligence with the masses : 
it is theirs of right. The workingman is God's best 
example of a human being, and intelligence is a goodly 
part of his endowment. 



124 A COUNTRY TOWN. 



VII 



AND now let us transport ourselves some four 
hundred miles from New York City. I de- 
sired to secure a man to introduce me to the 
people, both as a measure of pleasure and profit. I was 
told that a certain one might possibly go with me ; and, 
further, that he knew more than any other man in 
town. Averaging the town, I should say this was faint 
praise ! 

I found him an agreeable man, and, as it seemed to 
me, a perfect encyclopedia of political economy. 

GREATEST OF HIS TIME. 

And now I am sure that the reader will excuse me 
if I call attention to this day, October 31, 1897; — the 
day on which the procession takes place that performs 
the last rites for Henry George. 

Few men have accomplished more in a lifetime. 
Few men have so highly honored human nature — from 
a sturdy start with a trade, to a nation's mourning his 
loss. Few men have so persistently laid their life-work 



AS TRUE AS GREAT. 125 

at the feet of the masses. The sublime spectacle pre- 
sented to mortal man is a noble, wholesome life, teem- 
ing with efforts, vigorous and persistent, for the good 
of others. 

Such was the life of Henry George ; and to the good 
fate of our human kinship was it that he touched the 
heart-strings of a nation. 

Borne along in the social stream of fame and great- 
ness, bound closely to the spirit of advancement in the 
people, such a life is ever the advanced guard of lib- 
erty, — a benediction to the race. 

A CHOPPY SEA. 

Anywhere from twenty-one to twenty-five, with 
plenty of leeway both sides, when one is at the know-it- 
all age, I was launched into the sea of political econ- 
omy. 

A curious phase of this first indigestion of ideas was 
the fact that I was fairly transported with magnificent 
ideals, as unreasonable as they were gorgeous. 

Then came the slow process of digestion, with the 
result of a more substantial thought, a firmer grasp of 
a great subject, and a better knowledge of some points 
worth contending for in our day and generation. 

We need to work " amidships " of theory and prac- 
tise, with common sense at the " foretop." 

It is very pleasant to say that " truth is always prac- 
tical ; " but the trouble is that we are in a world that 



126 " IN THE AIR." 

has a great deal of error in it ; and it won't do merely 
to aim at pure truth, in this form or that, we have to 
deal with truth and people ; and we the people are not 
quite perfect yet. 

We have that problem presented in this election, as 
we have it in different forms every day of our lives. 
Here is a noble man to be put in as mayor, and here 
are other men of not nearly so much account when 
properly considering the pros and cons of both ques- 
tions and men. 

A PLEASANT ALTERNATIVE. 

Now, if there is no possible chance of electing the 
good man, — and you may possibly keep out a bad man 
by voting for some one else, — I am one of those to 
vote for the less-good man. 

If the case were positive, then we could be decided ; 
but as it is not, we will take our chances, this time, 
for the best man. 

To sensible men the practical side must ever come 
up, as well as the side of our desires : what we wish to 
have is one thing ; what we con have is another ; a 
theory fits one, and a balance between it and the prac- 
tical fits common sense. 

Now the theory I asserted with all the ardor that 
I could, was simply that the different occupations 
should be on equal terms of compensation, but that 
skill in each should receive compensation according as 



TO-DAY. 127 

it was greater or less. So the carpenter and the archi- 
tect would receive the same if they were of the same 
degree of skill in their work. 

Why don't I hold to that now? Because it is not 
true? Oh, no! 

I think, likely as not, it is entirely true, or, at any 
rate, that it is very close to the truth. And I am per- 
fectly certain that it is vastly nearer the truth than 
the successful among men begin to dream of. 

On the other hand, I am well assured it is not for 
us of to-day. 

MAYBE TO-MORROW. 

Think of all the avenues of business and of work re- 
ceiving the same compensation, a difference being al- 
lowed only according to skill and the hours of labor; 
that is, a skilful carpenter, a skilful preacher, a skilful 
bank-president should all receive the same if they 
worked the same number of hours. 

Absurd, you say ! And so do I ; if you mean for the 
present time. However, the idea is a generous one, and 
may play some part in the natural outcome of our in- 
ventive age — the dissipation of poverty. 

A little community of sixty families are reported to 
be living according to this division of produce, and 
they get along very well. 

But sixty families and sixty millions of people are 



128 IF. 

very different, — as we will discover if we learn any- 
thing about people, and as some noble experimenters 
have learned to their cost. 

Any sort of scheme may work with yourself and a 
few well-trained and agreeable neighbors : as a man 
can run the finances of his family by giving all his 
earnings to his wife and letting her take care of them. 

But if he tried that same method outside the family, 
he would have little difficulty in getting rid of his 
money, and having nothing for it. 

When I went to this town, in my innocent, childish 
ignorance — a some-time qualification of Presidents! — 
great wrongs were but the " phantasmagoria of a 
dream. " 

MILLIONS BETTER INFORMED NOW. 

I never supposed but that all was right, except here 
and there some little adjustments might be needed — 
the rich were rightly rich and the poor were generally 
justly poor, my father being no exception to the rule. 

I had no doubt that good honest work would bring 
me out all right, and that I would be rich some day, 
and that that day would not be as far off as some might 
suppose. 

My father was honest, but he had made some blun- 
ders, that was all ; my business was to look out and 
not make them. 

Why, if a man is intelligent, thrifty, and determined 



MIRACULOUS POSSIBILITIES. 129 

to make something of himself, his career must, of nc 
cessity, be a success. 

This was the entire thought I had on the subject; 
and to a great many people, even now, that is about 
their expression of belief. 

I well remember hearing P. T. Barnum saying in his 
very pleasing lecture, that nowadays when a boot-black 
sees some one going along with a four-in-hand, he 
says, " Oh, that is nothing, when I get rich I shall 
drive a six-in-hand ! " 

We all recognize that Barnum was a great show- 
man. His character and ability were in perfect accord 
with our fundamental postulate : he followed the peo- 
ple: their desire was his command. If he thought he 
led, he was more " fooled " than " fooling." 

A SOCIOLOGIC PIONEER. 

But now I am to spend three months daily with a 
man who has spent his life in studying social matters. 

He is steady, solid, almost stolid, and tells me the 
most harrowing things in the most deliberate manner 
possible. 

He seldom rouses to any degree of real enthusiasm, 
but ever and ever reviews, cogitates, and is careful not 
to make any mistakes in his theories. 

He thinks over the great questions of labor, capital, 
wealth, poverty, taxation ; how you and I are connected 
9 



130 A WELL-CLEARED MIND. 

in society ; what we are really doing for each other ; 
how my writing this book will cause some one to grow 
corn in California ; and how the Californian makes me 
work like a trooper on this book. No matter how diffi- 
cult the problems I propounded, his answer was always 
ready ; indeed, he seemed a " walking encyclopedia " of 
political economy. 

With me he found a mind as clear of knowledge on 
the subject as a slate that never had a mark, and every 
thought he gave me seemed to be scratched into that 
slate indelibly. 

The main principles that that man uttered will never 
leave me; possibly for the reason that I have never 
ceased to believe they were, in the main, true. But, 
how curious to find this rugged pioneer or seer of these 
peculiar questions out there, in that little town of some 
ten thousand inhabitants. 

ablaze ! 

It so happened that I had just the right sort of mind 
to take them up, to dwell on them, and to make them 
a part of my life. 

Home again ! And my father doubted the sanity of 
his eldest son as our war of words waged furiously: 
results of battle: two reformers, and that for which 
this book is written ; simply to introduce the most use- 
ful servant of progress " since Cadmus invented let- 
ters ! " 



ONE TOO MANY. 131 

I now read Henry George's book ; but in speaking to 
my father about it I failed to tell him anything he could 
grasp. Not from lack of study ; for I had taken many 
pages of notes to help me to grasp clearly the problem. 
The fact is, the whole matter was undigested by me, 
as yet, and — I " own up " — I did not see that the one 
great fact in Henry George's mighty contribution to 
justice and practical religion — " Progress and Pov- 
erty " — was simply to place all taxes on land according 
to its value. 

OUTGENERALED. 

But, as in argument ignorance only adds fuel to the 
flame, so, in spite of the rush and roar, I would 
come out the worse for it. Notwithstanding the ear- 
nestness of our debate, my father had many a hearty 
laugh at my expense — as I presented ideas, facts, and 
fancies in an inextricable jumble. 

Still, it annoyed him to see one whom he accredited 
with sense, talking nonsense. 

My errors were ever those of the self-sufficient be- 
ginner : I undertook to defend or explain too much : 
my little knowledge was a great burden. 

Eventually my father got the best of me. His well- 
aimed ridicule, and my surcease of knowledge, were a 
little too much for my persistence, and I subsided. 

For that I am truly thankful; I favored all who 



132 ROUTED. 

might hear me ; for 'tis a blessing to be quiet when 
you have nothing to say! 

I think I was forced out in this early battle, in which 
my father — who desired to inspire to a riper wisdom, 
by the " battle " — got the best of me, by another event. 
There was to be a small gathering of literary people 
at the house of a friend, and I was asked to prepare 
an essay, or speak on the subject of wages. 

IN RETREAT. 

I prepared an essay ; but, not satisfied with it, upon 
the eve of giving it, I turned it upside down, and tried 
my hand at saying something extemporaneously. The 
audience showed temporary lassitude, over my great 
attempt, while the chairman added a very little pepper- 
critique — ahem ! — just sufficient to give my tender feel- 
ings a terrible twinge. 

It was a number of years before I tried my hand at 
that again ; meantime, the subject never left my mind ; 
but the " fire-eating " stage was substituted by a gently 
simmering condition of thought. 

" Many and many is the time " when people might 
have said I ought to have been adding dimes to dol- 
lars. Instead, I was wandering along the roadside, or 
sitting down on some handy stone or log to think over 
the problem of the distribution of wealth, and the part 
of nature, labor, and capital, of skill and intelligence. 



WILL IT PAY? 133 

To stick to what you hate, is pretty hard to do. And 
how was I ever to get an education unless I took it 
" on the fly," so to speak ? 

Thus I scrambled my education — as do the best 
doctors, lawyers, etc., — a few ideas battering against 
daily circumstances. My title, " Doctor of Finance! " 
my profession, to secure the poor man's monetary 
health, demands the most erudite education. " Think- 
ing thoughts " is no idle process. Indeed, they may, 
and often do, rival the labor of blacksmith or hod- 
carrier, and they cost time and money, too, for who 
can work in one business and think in another! 

With great severity grippeth the millionaire his 
gold; so it is necessary to stick to one thing to make 
it a success. " Dear reader," have I made thinking a 
success ? 

" A cautious look around he stole, his bags of chink 
he chunk, and many a w T icked smile he smole and many 
a wink he wunk ! " — as Mark Twain says. And so, 
with miserly care, I stole my thinking ! 

FAST TO A ROCK. 

I had ideas to burn : but I didn't know which were 
best. I had, however, the bed-rock principle of labor 
for a foundation, and the absolute certainty in my own 
mind that the people were being constantly robbed, 
than which nothing could be plainer. 

W r hen, with a free and easy hand, — like one of the 



134 HELP WANTED. 

painters of old, who painted an entire arm with one 
dash of the brush, — we talk of the robbery of the work- 
ingman, " why not tell how he is robbed?" suggests 
some one who acknowledges he differs. with me in the 
fact that he doesn't know it all ! 

Not a bad idea ! First, there is Protection ! — That's 
a robbery, clear and plain. Here's the story: 

I own a hundred-thousand-acre farm, and have 
achieved success raising papaws for bananas, the only 
trouble being that the foreign bananas are so cheap 
it is hard for me to compete and make a living profit. 

I go to Congress. Of course, I may afford a trifle 
in the matter of expense if I can keep these foreign 
bananas out. 

OIL THE WHEELS. 

" Mr. Congressman," I say, " I have a little job for 
you. Can't you get a tariff on these foreign bananas? 
It's a little matter, to be sure, but you are not going 
to lose anything if you can help this along. 

" The fact is, I can stand fifty, seventy-five, or a 
hundred or two thousand dollars, more or less, to have 
my pet scheme put through." 

" Come down to the club with me to-night and see 
the boys, and maybe we can start the ball rolling, what 
do you say ? " 

So, after a time, I see just how the business is done; 



CUTE. 135 

and by putting it in the hands of the most astute lobby- 
ists, and paying out my money freely, the tide before 
long begins to turn my way. 

Thus I get my infant industry on its feet — a tenth 
of a cent on a banana : that oughtn't to hurt anybody ; 
but, between you and me and the gate-post, that means 
a clean million dollars profit for me in a short time. 

Now, then, who buys the papaws instead of bananas, 
who pays me my little million ? 

We all know who pays it; and there is no more to 
the Protection question than that; not a bit; it is just 
as beautiful a scheme for robbery as was " ever read 
of in books or dreamed of in dreams," and with such 
a pretty excuse, that it encourages infant industries — if 
I didn't think the workingman was a man, I'd think he 
was a fool, sure. Good men, however, have believed 
in it, and no doubt believe in it now, just as good men 
were Tories, — can't calculate ! 

PAUPER FARM. 

But that's all there is to Protection; and as soon as 
I get my hundred thousand or million acres well un- 
der way, with papaws — they do remind you so of 
bananas, although they don't taste exactly like them — 
I'm going for Congress. And say I : 

" I'll shake them up ; I'll shake all the nonsense of 
opposition out of them. I'll let them know I believe 



136 LISTENS LIKE A THREE-YEARS' CHILD. 

in Protection, clear down to the last dollar bill I can 
spare. 

" You better believe that a little money will go a 
great ways in convincing them that Protection will be 
a mighty good thing for me. 

" And as to the people, why, how can they know 
much about it ! — they can't get in on the ' ground 
floor,' as I can, and know all the tricks. 

" Tell the people we will put a little more Protec- 
tion on wheat, so as to help the poor farmer along! — 
he won't know ; collect money on wheat coming in 
when it is all going out ! 

"ah sin was his name.'' 

" Trust to the ignorance of the people and you 
are all right ! And, also, can't I pay them back more 
money if they will give it to me? Why, certainly I 
can — tell them that, too." 

Dear me ! how devilish truth is sometimes ! The 
truth is that Protection is a grand robbery ; the truth is 
that only the few can be where only the few are. 

And it takes an eternity of searching to find out 
about the works of these few when they are playing 
a game they don't want you and me to know about, 
for fear we might step in and spoil it. 

That's the " ignorance of the people " — they can't 
all be noble " watch-dogs of the treasury," they have 
to trust to these few. 



BOLD ROBIN HOOD. 137 

And the few, boldly filling their coffers from the 
people's pockets, moving heaven and earth to keep 
the people blind, say, with high and mighty patriotism, 
" What would the government come to if the ignorant 
workingpeople should run it ? " 

" Yes," say the few, " you would put untrained peo- 
ple in governmental places." 

And I would ask any honest man to tell me what they 
are trained in, except to get the best of their fellow- 
men? Ignorance would be heavenly in public office, 
compared with such training. 

MILLIONS OF PEOPLE AND BILLIONS OF MONEY. 

Mightn't there be some other forms of robbery ? It 
won't do us any harm at least to investigate further 
for a moment ; and if we happen to find another form 
of robbery or a dozen mighty avenues for the robber 
to work in, well and good ! 

Such things need not disturb us ; the world is large. 
A hundred thousand people may be dying in China of 
starvation, but you and I sleep soundly, eat regularly. 
Even the destruction of St Pierre is of momentary in- 
terest. 

The world is not upside down at all, but some things 
need to be changed, and that is what we are aiming 
at. Men are not so bad — in fact, they are considerably 
better than we usually give them credit for. Why, 



138 HOT SHOT. 

take the most lying of business men, and you will find 
that he may be as truthful as the day is long outside 
of business. 

He may also be a man of the strictest principle, 
for there are all sorts of principles ; his principle may 
be business, as against everything else ; and he lies 
as an incident, — part of his principle in business. 

It takes a great deal to make an all-around bad man, 
and I for one never met any man of such a peculiar 
make-up. 

Even the worst of politicians may be the noblest of 
men at home ; and most of us know that this is true. 
Let me give an illustration of the politician who has 
this double-sided characteristic. 

During the hot campaign in which Henry George 
figured, he said of a political leader in a rival camp, 
that in case he, Henry George, should be elected, he 
would not rest easily till this politician was behind 
prison bars, or words to that effect. 

TOMAHAWK. 

Now that was not calculated to mollify the temper 
of that politician ! It was hardly the kind of a remark 
to shake hands over! You could even imagine that 
he would feel red-hot, especially if the remark was 
well-deserved. That that politician must be in war- 
paint for Henry George, we would naturally suppose. 



WELL DESERVED. 139 

Mr. George passes to the great majority. Does this 
man say mean things of him? 

Not a bit of it ; he rises to the full stature of noble 
manhood, and speaks of the departed adversary with 
kindness and praise. We've all got two sides, at least, 
— an outside and an inside, — and it won't do any harm 
to remember it. 

And now let us ask, Are profits robbery ? 

That depends on how you look at them. Is it any- 
one's business if I make a million dollars in a day or 
only one dollar? 

A TOSS. 

I buy wheat and make a million, as did " old 
Hutch ; " or bonds, as Morgan did ; or gold, as Gould 
did — and you buy potatoes and make a dollar. I guess 
it's all right. 

I run a department store and make a million, you 
run a peanut-stand and make a few cents. 

I make a million out of groceries, cloth, rags — 
what's the odds? I don't earn a million, as you say, 
but I've got a right to it, it's mine. 

There's the trouble. A man makes profits according 
to the amount of goods that passes through his hands, 
not according to the work he does. 

He can't earn a million in a lifetime, but profits 
enable him to get it. 



140 ALL PARTNERS. 

Labor ownership, profits — figure it out. Is it a 
penknife or ten million tons of coal or ice? Hands 
off of ownership! What I own is mine! — sell high, 
starve consumer ; buy low, starve producer. Labor is 
the foundation of ownership and of a just price; no 
matter — " avast there ! " let the millionaire walk over 
us! 

When a great banker succeeded in hoodwinking the 
President and the people to the tune of several millions, 
he unquestionably did real work, and real work should 
be paid for — that is, work in lawful lines. 

Be generous with him ; give him fifty, seventy-five 
— oh, well ! it was a " mighty slick piece of business " 
— we'll go a hundred dollars a week on him, and let 
him pay his own expenses. 

NOT A SINECURE. 

Be generous : it pays ! Throw in the expenses. He 
may have burned the midnight oil to " box the com- 
pass " of that scheme ! — such labor comes high-priced ! 

Millions! There's profits for you — his two weeks' 
work! But pay the millionaire, he's a good fellow! — 
and will poverty never speak ? God forbid ! 

Profits above the wages a man earns, are paid for 
nothing; wages are paid for work. 

Large profits are received solely on account of our 
belief, our say-so, society's decree. Work is a reality, 
a fact, giving an inherent right to a just return ; 



GIST. 141 

but the right to profits that make millionaires is a 
chimera of the imagination — to practical beliefs the 
practical business men owe their great wealth. The 
whole story of such a book as I am writing, is simply 
that the laborer is worthy of his hire, as true to-day as 
it was two thousand years ago, or will be two thousand 
years to come. And can you pay the laborer his hire 
while you rob him? 

In so far as there are millions in the hands of those 
who have not earned them, to that extent at least the 
laborer is paid less than his hire. 

What more need be said of profits? If you are 
persuaded that these things are right, I can't con- 
vince you they are wrong; but if you are open to the 
truth, there it is! 

THEY REAP WHERE THEY SOW NOT. 

Men ought to have what they earn, but profits give 
them an opportunity to get a great deal more than 
they earn, because they are not measured by what is 
earned, but by what is handled. 

How about a loss of profits? — bad for the loser; 
" bad for the coo ! " as Stevenson said of the cow that 
should get in front of his first engine. But I call at- 
tention to profits as one of the means that has enabled 
the millionaire to grow in this country until there is 
more than one for every mile-post between Maine and 



142 " HEARD ROUND THE WORLD." 

California. And what they don't own between those 
mile-posts won't be worth owning, unless you and I 
say, "Stop!" 

There ! See ! We, the people, say it, and they're all 
falling down like a row of nine-pins ! 

What did I tell you ! " Up ! " said the people ; and 
up they stood ! " Down ! " say the people, and down 
they fall! 

Now for interest. Oh ! to live without work ! 

Last night I put a lump of gold as big as my two 
fists on the parlor mantel : I left it there to earn in- 
terest for me. 

" NOT ONE CENT FOR TRIBUTE." 

Excuse me! — the shock to my mind is so great — I 
put the gold there five years ago. I know you can't 
believe me : no interest is there yet. That gold repre- 
sents money. They say money earns interest, and that 
" Money talks," so, I said politely : " Mr. Gold, what's 
the reason you are not earning interest for me? Dear, 
good Mr. Gold, nobody has to work for interest! it 
just drops from the skies! Please get it for me ! Oh, 
do!" 

In " molten golden notes " he replied, " Sweet youth ! 
you must let somebody else have me and he will give 
you interest or dollars or work; it's all one — for me." 

" Excuse me, Mr. Gold ! I don't want to make other 



FALL IN LINE! 143 

people work for me for nothing; I can stand on my 
own feet." 

" No, indeed, my friend," he said ; " they won't work 
for yon for nothing, but work for me for love." 

Well, after this little confab, I began to see that from 
th? time Mr. Gold should leave me, till he came back 
again, I would do no atom of work for the interest 
that somebody else would give me for him. 

Aye ! Tis a cunning little slave-driver, is interest f 
" Please don't use that word." Then let us call it the 
" hypocrisy of finance ! " How's that ! 

Shall I take interest ? " Great author, great man, 
beware ! " — great fiddlesticks ! Let the nation beware 
that places me in its toils — 'tis the trick of ten millions ! 

And before we notice another big robbery, this 
might interest you: Some people say that you are 
afraid to put on the shoe you would fit on others. 

ALL SAILS SET ! 

Not at all. Suppose — for the fun of the thing — we 
say that a million copies of this book will be sold. 
That's so much more enticing than to think of having 
a little edition ten times too large. 

A million! 

Well and good! 

Ten cents a copy to us — one hundred thousand dol- 
lars; well? 

Do we earn it? 



144 BECAUSE. 

Not by any manner of means. 

We will get our snug little hundred thousand — hoop 
la ! big Ingin ! — because, " Of course he ought to have 
it ; didn't he write the book ! " But where's my right ? 

" Collegiate education," say they ; " twenty years di- 
gestion ! " say I — great reasons ; let us have pay also 
for the time of babyhood ! But work, " good faith ! 
good faith ! " Don't forget that ! Call it one, two, 
three, four years' work — as you will, and throw in 
enough of " living on hope " and fractious waiting, to 
make it a hundred! 

" WHO OR WHICH OR WHAT 
IS THE AH KHOOND OF SWAT? " 

Of course, as a great man, it would be far beneath 
us to descend to an estimate of the mere drudgery of 
work, and our little hundred thousand we should scoop 
in without the changing of an eyelash. 

While now but a mere Tom, Dick, or Harry, with a 
million copies sold you would shake my hand as you 
would " shake the hand that shook the hand of Sulli- 
van!" 

Then, too, as a matter of fact, I'd as leave do this 
as build a stone wall, which I have helped to do, or 
make a fire at five o'clock in the morning in winter, 
or weed strawberries till your back aches like a tooth- 
ache! Pay me just the same for them all, and I'll 
write the book. And if its popularity is such that a 



CAPTAIN KID. 145 

few thousands more than I earn come my way, more 
than I have any right to — except as wrong is made 
right by all believing in it, — more than the nation,— 
except in the lethargic sleep of monarchy — would allow 
me to have, shall I sweetly turn them in to the national 
treasury ! — not while " my name is Captain Kid, as I 
sailed, as I sailed ! " 

Ah, did we live by the rule of justice, this book 
would never have been written! 

How lucky I am if this book be popular, to live in 
such buccaneer times ! 

Let the poor divide with the rich : — 'tis charity ! — 
Betake to thyself neither wife, home, nor wages, but 
hold in unbounded joy a single chance — my book, my 
book! 

Writ in words of fire : " The decline and fall " of 
the United States prevented! The people inspired! 
The worker recognized ! Behold the building of a new 
nation ! 

But as the shoe must be made to fit, why not pay me 
a few hundred millions for my great discovery? 

VIRGIN SOIL. 

Here we strike the be-all and end-all, top, bottom, 
and center; solid trap-rock foundation of the labor 
problem — all other discoveries distanced ! 

Why, this discovery places us as far in advance of 
10 



146 A RICH STRIKE. 

the age of Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln, as the 
electric age is in advance of the candle age ! 

Talk about your millions ! " But, Jack, how did you 
make the discovery ? " " Then he gave a hitch to his 
trousers, which is a trick all seamen larn ! " It was 
this wise, the " taller candle " of hard luck was burn- 
ing at both ends, the sum total of the world was against 
me, fortune was as remote as a fixed star. 

Suddenly there came a blinding flash of lightning, 
then an unearthly peal of thunder. The next morning, 
the roar of thunder still in my ear, I came to : the sun 
was ablaze, birds twittered sweetly, and in silent awe 
I gazed upon my discovery ! 

CHIEF ADVOCATE. 

Democracy at last ! The laborer stands preeminent, 
his cause properly defended, his hour of triumph at 
hand! The prize is mine! Competitors kindly step 
aside ; I am " the first that ever burst into that silent 
sea ! " Hand over your billions, please, and let the 
Vanderbilts, Morgans, and Rockefellers stand on their 
heads before me! A few billions! Why, for ten 
thousand years the billions have been rolling in to a 
few commonplace people, called kings. What for? 
Because of one-man worship. 

What we worship, we are bound to have; so we 
" swapped " kings for millionaires, both superstitious 



MY ALADDIN'S PALACE. 147 

relics of a barbarian age ; when, by as new a departure 
as was ever banned by church, fate accords them here 
their deserts ! A truce to the policy of hate ! Let the 
parent treat the pampered child kindly but firmly. We 
are all human ; what we would do were we millionaires 
is seen by what the millionaires do. How can we 
blame them, when we who lead the leaders are all- 
powerful and have simply hoodwinked ourselves into 
believing them our masters ? 

Yes, the Kohinoor is mine. . . if, if — hush! there 
is no if — this book is popular. 

Ages upon ages ! — yet where or whence the work- 
ingman? Covered by the ashes of time! 

When I, on the summit of ten million years, forth 
to the breeze unfurl the flag of his enduring greatness. 

A SHIBBOLETH OF JUSTICE. 

Hurrah for my billions ! Alas, alas, for my billions ! 
my very discovery denies them to me. That's the way : 
your great discoverer must sacrifice everything — lucky 
indeed if he isn't " out of a job." 

Ah, weep, weep, for the fate of Columbus, myself, 
Demosthenes, and Socrates! 

Speaking thus modestly of myself and these great 
ones, reminds me, did you ever hear of " an historic 
face?" 

Herewith the incident : As I put my thumbs in the 
arm-holes of my vest, permit me to say that on my list 



148 RESCUED ! 



of personal acquaintances, I had, ahem, a preacher of 
national reputation : he desired to let his moustache 
grow. 

The preacher who told me of this incident, said, he 
told this celebrated man that he oughtn't to let his 
moustache grow, for his was an historic face ! That's 
the way to compliment your great man! The people 
in his church made such fun of him, — bringing in at 
a sociable a monster moustache, — that the old gentle- 
man had to give it up. Being a wise man, he always 
followed his people, and, therefore, never let his mous- 
tache grow. 

This story was told me as a fact. So you see the 
great man has to keep great all the time ; set up in a 
frame, as it were : he mustn't make any changes in his 
appearance ; for who knows, some of his greatness 
might rub off! 

Xow isn't that a pretty introduction to our own his- 
toric face? 

THE ONLY BOOK PRESERVED. 

Suppose ten thousand years from now some one 
should say, " What sort of a looking fellow was that 
great discoverer after the flood? That is, I mean the 
one who discovered the people ? " 

Could anything be more appalling than not to have 
a complete description of him, and from his own hand ! 
— it is a case of compulsion ! 



MATTERS OF GREAT MOMENT. 149 

You, as well as our friend in the future, must know 
the Right Reverend, F. R. S., A. N. Unknown, the 
minute you see him. Six foot tall to start with. Ah, 
how hard it is to " lop off " any of that six feet ! But 
we must, for about three-quarters of an inch is lacking 
— shoes, however, make up for it. Besides, why didn't 
they make six feet that three-quarters of an inch less 
in the first place, and thus save my feelings ? / could 
have given those people of a younger age instruc- 
tions ! 

Fleshy? Flardly; but with a few good weights in 
our pockets we will stand you a hundred and sixty 
pounds. 

Face : " Nose, a Roman; complexion, fair ! " No, in- 
deed ! slightly the opposite, for the nose. 

Notice — slightly; it's best to be exceedingly partic- 
ular as to a little matter of this sort. 

Mouth large, with extensive reverberating lung ca- 
pacity ! Chin large : English, Dutch, and Irish — ex- 
treme modesty prevents further mention of direct royal 
lineage. 

Head narrow, rather than broad. Forehead: ah, 
that noble, historic forehead! how it cleaves the air 
and attracts the gaze of the populace ! 

Eyes large, " large white eyes," as a woman once 
said — never to be forgiven or forgotten. 

After this you will know the great man the min- 



150 MILLIONS LIKE HIM. 

ute you see him. Addenda : he is " sandy com- 
plected." 

I AND CICERO QUITE VAIN. 

All this, to be sure, is said because of great vanity 
— some people are not as vain as I, but I can't help 
that. 

Greatness, you know, is my aim. Say we are in the 
Academy of Music, five thousand people present, 
twenty men on the platform, I am one of them. Not 
one is known to the world as I am. My reputation has 
spread to the antipodes. Take a good look, and see if 
you can tell which one I am. 

Well, you say, " it's a little hard telling. I thought 
you were the man back in the corner, but I found that 
he was the janitor of the building, and that other fine- 
looking man was a carpenter, so I gave it up." 

Oh, you gave up too easily. He must have the ear- 
marks of greatness about him. When he goes into 
the grocery store every one must stand round and gaze 
at him in awe. See the news-boys ! How they all stop 
shouting for fear their rude noise might disturb some 
world-thrilling thought. 

Ah, he is none of your ordinary clay ! But do you 
see that imposing front brick there, Philadelphia's 
purest and finest article — that's the kind of clay he 
comes from. 

Look again ! This time you will find him. 



GOOD CONDITIONS MAKE GOOD MEN. 151 

NO CLASS FOR CHARACTER. 

A man crosses the ocean in the steerage to portray 
it for a fine paper; no end of trouble he takes to dis- 
guise himself, thinking his noble appearance would 
make his errand known. No wonder he is jostled pre- 
cisely as the rest are, and maybe with less considera- 
tion. He forgot that he was different from the rest 
in dress and position only. 

Did he think character was not to be found there 
as fine and as noble as among the people that could 
pay more for accommodations? 

Let your fine captain, whom we all so readily recog- 
nize, go down and heave coal in the furnaces for 
awhile, until he gets acclimated to the work, then see 
if you would recognize the captain any more. 

Nine times out of ten you would suppose he had 
been in the coal-heaving business all his life. 

A TRANSPOSITION. 

Take your elegant bank-president, with his white 
hands and face of the indoor bank-complexion, and 
put him on an ice-wagon till the lines in his face 
show the hard usage of weather, and his mutton-chop 
whiskers have long lost their elegant trim, do you 
think you would know your bank-president ? 

Put your longshoreman in fine broadcloth, and give 



152 GAY. 

him indoor occupation for a few years, with easy 
ways and a pleasant life, and you will at once recog- 
nize in him a banker, a merchant, or president, as the 
case may be — one to the manner born. 

Don't you think that is about the case? Don't you 
think distance lends enchantment to the view ? 

If you see a man only on the public platform, all 
dressed up, doing his best in his line, don't you think 
that the difference between him and ourselves is mostly 
a matter of distance? A banker gets into his car- 
riage ; the carriage looks fine, the banker looks fine, the 
horses look fine, the harness looks fine, and the driver 
looks finest of all. Doesn't that appear very different 
from what it would appear to chat with him over the 
fence, while he is in his shirt-sleeves, with a dripping 
face, weeding his little garden-patch on a hot summer 
day? 

Fact is, we create the scarecrow of ostentation, the 
accessories of caste, then humbly fall down and wor- 
ship. To cure disease : dose for full-grown adult, one 
half hour's reading of this book each day for a month ! 

" BEYOND THE OCEAN MANY A MILE." 

" Once on a time, not many years ago," and in one 
of the most spacious and luxurious mansions you ever 
stood outside of and wondered how the people on the 
inside lived, a Mr. Robber and a Mr. Devil met to- 



TWO KINGS. 153 

gether. They were evidently sociably inclined. They 
spoke in self-complaisant tone of authority, never 
dreaming that they were puppets of the people. Said 
Robber to Devil : " Do you think there is anything 
better than Protection by which the working people 
can be gouged without their knowing it ? " 

" You have me there," said Devil ; " I think that Pro- 
tection is hidden best of anything, for how is a man to 
tell when he puts sugar into his tea that some rich 
man has an interest in every spoonful he uses, and 
that that little interest may mean millions of dollars ? " 

" Or, who thinks, when he buys a copper kettle, 
that owners of copper mines make millions out of the 
two or three cents extra that he pays for Protection ? " 

" No," says Mr. Devil, " I guess we can't do much 
better than that, it is a perfect blind; a fine thing for 
a king to raise money that way ; beautiful for the rich." 

" Oh," says Mr. Robber, getting warmed to his sub- 
ject, "don't talk to me; you're a back number: why, 
I can beat you two to one. I can take money out of 
people's pockets while they think they are putting it in." 

WONDERFUL SCHEME. 

" Excuse me," said Devil, " but how is that ? " 
" Raise the price of gold." 

" Raise the price of gold ? " echoed Devil. " What 
for?" 



154 THEY NEVER SLEEP. 

Robber fairly shouted, " What for ! Why, you, you, 
you !. . . well, I'll tell you — so that all who have debts 
shall pay more, and all who owe interest shall pay more. 
Isn't that plain ? " 

To tell you the truth, Mr. Devil was severely shocked 
at his own stupidity. 

"Then," continued Robber, "what a brilliant plea! 
call it honest money ! And I'll tell you another thing, 
everybody will be getting their pay in this higher- 
priced gold or its equivalent, and you can scare the life 
out of them by talking to them about getting their pay 
in cheaper gold or its equivalent if they go back to the 
old way." 

Devil was fairly petrified ; he almost swore to think 
that he had not been in ahead of Robber. " But," said 
he, " how will you raise the price? " 

Robber was quiet for a moment, suppressing his rage 
at such a question ; finally he spoke. His first words 
were, to quote him accurately : " Holy smoke ! Raise 
the price? " Then, coming down to a whisper, so that 
nobody would hear, he said : " Have the governments 
use it, instead of silver." 

ONCE IN A LIFETIME. 

This was too much ! and Devil caught up Robber, 
and for ten minutes they danced round the room like 
mad ; it was the most brilliant scheme they had slmick 
for many a year. 



KING'S FAVORITE. 155 

I had to work hard to get this information out of 
them, but I finally did; and so I give it to you as it 
came from headquarters. 

But wasn't it a pretty scheme? 

And then the United States adopted the plan, and 
many other governments followed; for all the rich 
people and all the good people — for you know most 
of the good people are rich or at least well-off — were 
in favor of it; and it still goes down with them like 
hot cakes. 

Being on familiar terms with Mr. Devil, I once took 
him by the button-hole and asked him if he regarded 
the poor people as especially ignorant because they let 
such schemes pass? 

" Why no," said he ; " they are, in fact, more in- 
telligent than the rich. Here is the point: There is 
a great mass of them, and how could they all the time 
be looking out for such little games as these? They 
are strictly for the few to play at, the delight of kings, 
the pastime of wealth, and sweet incense to the world's 
rulers. When the people have a fair chance to see 
what is what, they are on the right side every time." 

HIS OPPORTUNITY. 

He kept on, and I listened: 

" You see," said the Arch Fiend, " these schemes suit 
me; they make the rich richer, and the poor poorer: 
then I get in my innings. 



156 CHANCES PASSING AWAY. 

" Why, sir," he went on, " I have some chance at the 
very poor, that it true. But," said he, " the rich are 
mine ' every time.' " 

I looked at him, amazed. 

" Yes," said he, " if you give a man hard work, and 
especially hard physical work, fact is, I have very 
little chance at him, and I really do sometimes get com- 
pletely discouraged ; " and out of pure sympathy, 
" adown my cheek the salt tear ran." 

" Well," I said, " cheer up, there may be even 
greater schemes yet than the one you have mentioned," 

" Hardly, hardly," he ended. 

And so we parted forever ; but I still see him warm- 
ing his toes by the fire of his imagination ! 



LOVING. 157 



VIII 



HAVING reached so far in our story, we may 
now take a glimpse at another scene. 

The poor young man is as likely to fall in 
love as any one else; and just as likely to lose in the 
quest as any one else. 

But, likely as not, the losing or winning is as much 
in the person as in his circumstances. 

OR LOSING. 

Still, any one knows that love has a way of going to 
the place it is sent ; and while the poor young man may, 
as a young man, be attractive, yet the properly pre- 
siding parties to such events are likely, in a goodly 
quiet way, to put a damper on such matters when 
they think it should be done. 

Whatever the reason, I hereby state I am not mar- 
ried. x\nd you shall see, as the story unweaves, that 
it is not all my fault! 'Tis but the frailty of circum- 
stance! 



158 INVESTING IN " FUTURES." 

Half a life, half a life, half a life onward! shall I 
have my " better half." So does my " unsuccessful 
period " do penance to my " successful period." Hoop- 
la! 

How jolly is fate! — one year, one little year, is one 
year less to wait ! 

Ah, but the reward that waiteth on the waiter ! The 
Pyramids of Egypt and the Brooklyn Bridge were re- 
wards for working and waiting. 

Is it the dykes of Holland, or a great nation? Still 
is the test of waiting applied, — the waiting that wait- 
eth on the worker. 

So " cheerily, lads, cheerily ! " tested by adversity, 
the boat shall ride merrily over the waves of pros- 
perity. 

lionized. 

Who knows but yet, when the ringing cheers of the 
vast populace shall announce, in the majesty of their 
right to announce, that they proclaim the unknown 
known, when, as the poet says: Your book it must 
immortal be, " Dear sir, it cannot fail, for 'tis incom- 
prehensible, and without head or tail ! " 

And when the papers fly my name to their scare- 
heads, and whole pages are taken up with the color of 
my eyes and the cut of my hair — then, ah, then ! may 
some gentle lady smile on me. And as she sweetly 
touches a glass of " the nectar of the gods " — pure cold 



DON'T WAIT, TIME. 159 

water — to her ruby lips, she says, " Here's to you as 
good as you are, and here's to me as bad as I am ; but 
as good as you are or as bad as I am, I'm as good as 
you are and you're as bad as I am ! " 

I impatiently wait for that time of supreme bliss : 
the beginning of our sixty or seventy years or so of 
happy, peaceful, contented wedded life. 

But living in such a delightful manner almost makes 
me forget my story : " where am I at ? " 

Oh, well ! I was about to say that if I had had the 
wherewithal I should have been married long ago ; but 
would I have cared for the same young woman? — 
there's your question. I then should have been more 
nearly on even terms with women. 

PARALYZED. 

Put it this way : Wouldn't a young woman of good 
sense enjoy first seeing the hundred-dollar bills come 
rolling in before marrying a man whose monetary op- 
portunities rested on the success of a work like this? 
Suppose you were writing this book, what would you 
think? 

Well, that's just the way I think, precisely! 

As the heart is to love, so is money to the home. — 
Solomon — how fine ! now that we know who wrote it ! 

But let me tell you of my first real love affair. 
You say it is not fair to tell the public, but the pub- 
lic doesn't know who I am nor who she is : and how are 



160 AS IT WAS. 

you to tell that it is not an invention from beginning to 
end? And no matter what I say, not one in ten will 
believe I am telling the truth ; so I might as well go 
ahead. The sequel is, the reader entertained, the writer 
rewarded, and the renewal of hope for the better ad- 
justment of our civil polity. 

In telling this story, the momentous question arises 
whether to adopt the Shakespearean, the Dickenson- 
ian, or the Sir Walter Scottian method. Each has its 
charms, but how dreary are they all compared with the 
sublime reality. 

The young woman was quite pretty : I think you 
would have acknowledged that yourself. She was a 
little short, and I am a little tall, which makes a good 
average. 

Few are they who do not have a pleasant retrospect 
of incidents along these lines, the first to be put out 
of mind by other affairs of a similar nature! 

AMONG THE FOUR HUNDRED. 

Of course, I called a great many times, and she 
called often at our house ; so the smoldering embers of 
reciprocity glimmered brightly in the starlight of love ! 

Yes, now I do think of a real incident. I took this 
young lady to hear Patti. Ah, think of that ! Shouldn't 
she have cared the world for me after that! 

Previous to this occasion I had made a little extra 
money, something that was harder to keep than get, no 



PATTI. 161 

matter how hard I worked for it. Oh, the luxury 
of throwing your money away when it is the last cent 
you have ! or, being so careless, to find, when you 
thought you didn't have a cent, a five-dollar bill in your 
pocket-book, which hasn't occurred to me very often. 
How I would relish such an occurrence now ! 

To see and hear Patti ! I secured the tickets — two 
dollars apiece. That was not bad for my first love — 
or thirteenth, for that matter ! But, alas ! I was not 
satisfied with the seats. 

What shall we do ? Go back, and, to the speculators, 
pay our little four dollars apiece. 

GRAND. 

That's luxury, and fine seats ! Why, many a million- 
aire has never indulged in such luxury ! She can never 
say I didn't do my part up brown. It was in the Acad- 
emy of Music, New York; and we had front seats in 
the balcony, — I think it is called. 

I can never quite keep track of the names they use 
for the different parts of the theater; at any rate, it 
was just above the proscenium boxes, where wealth 
delights to disport itself. They were front seats, 
roomy and sumptuous, and the whole performance 
went off in what must have been its usual dazzling and 
delightful manner. 

We had heard Patti ! Five thousand dollars a night ! 
Who says women work for less than men ? I was not so 
11 



1 62 TO BE OR NIT TO BE. 

entranced by Patti as I might liked to have been. The 
play was A'ida, and quite a marvelous production. 

The young woman, not Patti, was a lovely singer. It 
would have done you good to hear her ; and she sang 
me to a perfect ecstacy of love until night and day, day 
and night, all the time it was nothing in this world to 
me but one constant thought of her. If it had not been 
for good health I might have gone crazy. 

And now I made up my mind — to what? — tell her I 
wanted her for a wife? 

Well, I hardly think that was it exactly. You see, I 
didn't want a wife who didn't want me ! Question : 
Does she care for me ? 

on to Richmond! 

To tell you the truth, it is a little past my recol- 
lection to know what I said ; for was not the intensity 
of sentiment equaled only by the perplexity of mind? 
I had wrought myself up to an almost frenzied state 
to know the momentous issue of the case. 

It's all right to laugh now, but, then, it was like 
laughing as you see a man with his hand on the trigger, 
ready at the slightest breath to blow your head off ! 

I couldn't state my case to her in so many words: 
that was impossible. Of course, you readily under- 
stand the situation. What could I do? 

Why, I could write, and then read to her the 



BABYLON IS FALLEN. 163 

document that should pen the dictum of my fate ; that 
is what I did do. She was a lovely girl; and I read 
that little document fairly trembling all over, and let- 
ting her know exactly how I felt, and wanting to know 
if there was any returning or answering sentiment. 

The young woman put her hand upon her heart ; and 
seemed in an agitated state of mind. She could, how- 
ever, see nothing in her feelings that corresponded to 
what I had hoped for; and she said so. That was 
ended. 

It took some time for me to get over it. I went 
to the Park, took many walks, and bestirred myself to 
understand that the world was all right, even if such 
loveliness was not to be mine. 

It was a severe dose. What seems worse, was the 
fact that it was to be repeated in severer doses ! 

Some people never know what it is to fall in love. 
With the help of a clear-headed young man, I think I 
have solved that problem — that is, as to what love is. 
Not how to have a lovely vision transform " no " into 
"yes!" It is intense concentration on one object. 

ESSENCE OF EXTREMES. 

People become crazy in love, crazy in business, and 
crazy over religion. The process is identical — concen- 
trate, concentrate, concentrate. 

The story goes that some foreman in a printing- 
office would go among the men when there was a 



164 WE MET. 

rush, and say, " Gentlemen, concentrate ! " That's the 
way to write a fine book like this, or only make mil- 
lions ! 

" In a year or two or more or so," as the poet puts 
it, what more natural than to find another of these 
beautiful ideals of nature that can so readily destroy 
men's equilibrium. 

This time we find " the maiden fair " — the apoth- 
eosis of the imagination — in one of the most beautiful 
towns in Connecticut. 

I remember the first time I saw her. It was at a 
church fair or festival. I took part in the performance 
of the evening, by giving a recitation or two. 

ASSURANCE. 

Previously I had been told of this young woman by 
the preacher, who had " taken me in," so to speak, and 
provided me with much of churchly wisdom. He was 
a man well-along in years, and told me very many of 
his experiences. He had won his wife by proposing to 
her the very first time they met — an odd performance, 
but eventually his unceasing persistence conquered all 
obstacles. A man of great self-confidence ; he once 
said to me, that he could marry any woman he wanted 
to, which was nonsense, according to my opinion. 

He told me how the ministers would meet together 
in their little country gatherings, some half dozen or 
so of them, and how exceedingly radical some of them 



SHUT THE DOOR! 165 

would be at these meetings when they were perfectly 
sure there was nobody around to report what they 
said ! He, I expect, was as radical as any of them. 

All the details would be so skilfully worked into his 
stories that one could hardly help believing every word 
of them. 

I remember his telling me about his raising a sub- 
scription fund for church purposes, and the trouble he 
had to get the last twenty-five dollars. Some one — 
possibly to test his abilities as a collector — had prom- 
ised to make up all that was necessary if he could make 
this final collection. The only one left to call upon was 
an old skinflint that no one could get to pay anything. 

The minister called, saw the man, and asked for the 
money ; he couldn't get it, but was asked to stop for 
dinner. He stopped, and he ate, and ate and ate; he 
was a big man and could eat a good deal. 

AN UNWELCOME BOARDER. 

Then he told the good people who had provided such 
a bountiful repast that he was going to board it out ! — 
they didn't jump at that, but he insisted. 

Somewhere about four o'clock a lunch was served, 
and this time it was life and death with him, but he 
made great headway with the victuals. 

There was no getting rid of the minister; he was 
bound to stav ; it was a serious matter. The old skin- 



166 A GOOD BEGGAR. 

flint — a farmer, by the way — had to surrender. So the 
minister got his money. 

To hear him tell the story, was to me as good as a 
feast in itself. I think I can appreciate a good literary 
joke, but the physical kind make me laugh the most, 
such as the joke of the darkies who had a companion 
take seidlitz powders separately, " the meeting of the 
waters " causing much consternation ! 

But as to the young lady : I was not especially at- 
tracted to her at first. 

It is doubtful if I would ever have gone ahead at 
all had it not been for this minister, who should have 
had more sense. I, however, gained a certain portion 
by further experience. 

oh, no ! it's not yes ! 

You have often heard that when a woman says 
" no," she means " yes." 

That's all well enough as a theory or an adage, but 
you may find that there is such a thing as a woman's 
saying " no " and meaning it ! 

This was the little joke I was not acquainted with, as 
yet, I thinking that a " no " or a manner that meant 
" no," might mean " yes." 

Of course there are exceptions to every rule — and 
there is no rule for love. 

Still, a no is sometimes no, and a yes is sometimes 



ONE, TWO, THREE, OR FOUR. 167 

yes, and it is well to appreciate it. Why shouldn't 
the girls like any bright young man who is polite and 
used to good society? 

" Might as well be acquainted with him, or many 
like him ; " for, as my mother says, you can't say 
" no " till you are asked to say " yes ! " 

Singing! Fine! Outside of that church you could 
hear her voice above the whole congregation, and as 
clear as a bell ; a strong, sweet, clear voice. 

She sang in the choir, and her singing was enough 
to make one fall in love, if nothing else would. 

Maybe you are not interested, but still I'll go on. 
In the first place, this was my mistake, caring for only 
one, or limiting my calling to only one. 

I soon w r as strictly caring, calling, and seeing only 
one, and, worse, thinking of only one. I did some 
business, but the thought of her was mostly in my 
mind. 

WELL-TRODDEN. 

And now let us walk to the young woman's house 
from my boarding-place, which was on a little side 
street. 

You go about a block, turn to the left, cross a bridge, 
when you see two streets coming V-shaped together; 
you take the left-hand one, soon turn again to the left, 
pass up a beautiful street, lined with fine old trees. 

Now turn to the right, crossing the edge of a little 



168 ILLUSION. 

park. You are now on a narrow street, at the head of 
it you come to a board pavement, or sidewalk, turn to 
the left a little ways; and now you climb up a flight 
of steps and it brings you to the porch of the house. 
Here you have a sweeping view of the surrounding 
country : of water, hill, dale, and rock, such as would 
delight a painter. 

Here it is that you meet the young woman, a fine 
specimen of young womanhood ; though, as some 
woman remarked to the doctor — that is, the preacher, 
whose room I occupied when he was away, — " What 
did I find in her to attract me?" 

Why not ask the same question of any human being? 
Isn't there a soul in us all? 

ENCHANTMENT. 

If we are not too far apart in the scale of humanity, 
the young man might fall in love with any estimable 
girl if his attention be properly turned so that he 
thinks of her to the exclusion of everything else. 

And she would sing for me as the other girl had 
sung. Everything she did, in fact, every look, every 
gesture, would be turned by my willing mind as a sign 
that she cared for me. When the Doctor twitted her 
about me once, she told him : " Mind your own busi- 
ness ! " Good advice ! 

I accompanied her to church sometimes, and no 
doubt paid her enough attention to be talked about. 



" PURPOSE GRIM." 169 

But, you see, that sort of talk never came to my ears ; 
for, not only was I a comparative stranger in the local- 
ity, but, " The friends thou hast and their affection 
tried, grapple them to thy soul with hooks of steel," 
not having grappled many such friends, a general 
knowledge of my impression was not vouchsafed me. 

My attentions were kept up under the solid and un- 
flinching impression that maybe she cared for me, no 
matter what she said or did. 

To that impression I was as true as steel, — if I do 
say it myself ; and I would accompany her, though the 
heavens fall, it was no matter to me how fearful the 
dose I gave myself. 

While it is right enough to say that it is such 
a wonderful pleasure to be in love; and while there is 
an ecstasy of enjoyment at times, I think that such a 
part as I was performing was little less than hell upon 
earth. 

love's strife. 

Think of being scared to death of a girl, and, at the 
same time, going, " of a Sunday," to accompany her 
to church whether she would or no! That was your 
humble servant's position to a dot, or a " single all- 
spice," as a friend of mine says. 

Yet I feel thankful that when I attempted such an 
escort, she could have been rid of me if she had tried 
with all her might ! 



170 COLD STEEL. 

On one occasion I had made up my mind to accom- 
pany her from church — that is, to ask the privilege. 

At the proper time, when the services were over, and 
friends were standing around having a pleasant chat, 
I boldly walked to where she stood. But she seemed 
to stop for an everlasting while, and moments were as 
centuries then ! 

Here the minister's part of the story comes in; for 
he told me that he saw me standing there waiting, and 
that I was as white as a sheet, and so he hastened over 
in order to set matters right. She accepted her escort, 
and I went home with her. 

At another time I took dinner with the family. You 
can, thus, understand that it was not teetotally all on 
one side ; and that she must have shown me some pleas- 
ant attention, which led me to suppose that I was not 
altogether wrong as to her feeling toward me. 

LIFE IN SECONDS. 

However, these intense moments can't last forever, 
or we would not live to tell the story, even if we are 
and have been generally in good health and strength. 

But, on the other hand, it may be well to note that 
you or I can tell a friend in five minutes what it may 
have taken a year to perforin. 

This book takes me some months to write, but it 
takes only a few hours to read ; and it has taken me all 



A NO, NO! 171 

my life to act out whatever of history it may have in 
it. Intense moments may do for books and stories ; 
but we may live weeks, months, years, in fact, a whole 
life-time before we meet those that stir us the most. 

But the claims of business compelled me to leave 
that locality, and I went some fifty miles away. Not 
so my heart ; it was there, never turning from its one 
incessant appeal. 

Finally, I determined to know whether she really 
cared for me. 

I called, and had a long talk with her. She did not 
care for me, I found, as she thoroughly informed me, 
but in the pleasantest possible spirit withal. 

A GLAD FAREWELL. 

A lovely smile may be instructive! and when she 
asked me if I was going to accompany her to church 
the next Sunday, and I informed her I would not, or 
that I would not be there, — I am not quite sure which, 
— she looked as pleased as possible; and that smile of 
honest satisfaction put matters in a clear light. With 
it, I left, never to see or hear of her again. 

I had presented her with some fine bouquets ; and I 
now asked her if she thought it was right to have ac- 
cepted them while caring nothing for me. Anything 
in the line of presents, she said, did not necessarily 
pay for her affections ; and it looks as if she was right. 



172 SERVED HIM RIGHT. 

If she had not accepted them I should have been af- 
fronted, and when she did accept them I took it as 
meaning entirely too much. 

So there is a love story " for all true lovers to ad- 
mire." 

But in all this there is a supreme, if I may call it 
so, satisfaction; and that is, that I feel profoundly 
glad if these gentle maidens did not care for me. 
Ah, ha ! sour grapes ! 

QUEENS. 

I don't say this with a feeling of triumph ; it is 
simply the fact that it doesn't seem to me, as I re- 
member the young women now, that they and I were 
in any true sense properly fitted for a long life in the 
married state. Therefore, I more than exonerate 
them. In fact, when I think of the other side, and re- 
member some who have cared for me, I sometimes 
think I have only had my deserts, if I have even had 
that — but those I'll not talk about. 

There is a feeling of fairness in thus telling you 
about the young women who have gotten the best of 
me, but as to the dear souls who were wrapped up 
in me, it's a shame even to think of them as if I were 
a conqueror. Let them, in turn, rejoice as I do! Let 
me regard them all as heavenly. 

As for me, I am of very ordinary clay, and am afraid 



REHABILITATION. 173 

that the sunshine of heaven in these matters has come 
down to terra firma with a bang — that is, if sunshine 
can come down with a bang ! 

Says one : " He must have been an awful flirt, or 
else very fickle;" but does that follow? For, even 
supposing there was a round " baker's dozen " of such 
cases of more or less intensity, in which " my hopes 
were shattered forever," possibly it was only that 
" when poverty comes in at the window love flies out 
at the door ! " 

What's your opinion? Or wouldn't you express it 
in public? 

Why, if one has this love-sentiment in his nature, 
then nature says love ! and surely a year or two should 
be enough time to take oneself in hand and forget a 
girl who never cared for him. 

BE JOLLY. 

With matters settled, it seems to me that the best 
part to perforin is to down the sentiment or the 
memory at once, if possible. 

And surely, it is better not to be miserable and 
moody and sour over life, either; but ready for its 
battles again in whatever form, with a stout heart. 
Find another girl, and more girls; and if burnt once, 
then burn again more carefully! 

It is this multitude of experiences, taken as nature 



174 SHAKESPEARE'S 

gives them, disagreeable to take, through which we 
" bob up serenely," and which unceasingly pound and 
push human nature higher; it is through them all — 
pleasant, good or bad — that the working-people more 
that any other class rise to a better and firmer footing 
in this world. 

It must also be because of these many trials, with 
the sunshine blazing through here and there, that they 
are the wise leaders of the world. 

Let us for a minute think this matter over more 
particularly: you read, and I'll argue! 

I'm taking the time to write, even if I steal the time, 
and who knows but you find it even harder to wade 
through the doses I give — ah ! there's many a true 
word spoken in jest! 

" Stay not upon the order of thy going, but go at 
once ! " as my old friend Shakespeare says. 

UNIVERSITY. 

Oh, I'm well acquainted with him ! he and I went to 
the same school ! And we didn't go to college, either ! 

That's a point for you — the greatest writer of any 
age! And the college didn't train him, either; some 
chance for you and me yet ! 

Yes, we, the people, take that chance, and let us look 
a little more directly at what we accomplish. 

As it requires different points of view to learn of 



NOT A DREAM. 175 

the sun and its elements, so with the problem of this 
age. 

Our part in this book is to contend for the world as 
against its shadows ; for the people against the few ; 
for the intelligence of to-day against the ignorance 
of the past. 

No mere building of Pyramids or East River Bridge 
our task, but the rebuilding of the liberty of nations ! 

One would think, to read history, that there were 
only leaders doing the work. For instance : 

General So-and-so fought the great battle of Bloody 
Neck, and won; King Toe-the-mark the Great built 
the great city; the Emperor moved his palace to such 
and such a place ; Johnston ran the business for forty 
years, and died worth ten millions. 

We hear of Napoleon's great battles, of the vic- 
tories of Grant; but not of his corporal, Rand — " The 
bravest, keenest, sharpest man to plan or execute a 
plan; if long as time his fame don't stand, then my 
name ain't Alexander Rand ! " 

" PAGE-MARKS IN 

We hear how the President ran the village, or nation, 
or business. We read of the lives of these few men, 
of their good points, — always popular, because the tri- 
umphal progress of humanity is ever a search for the 
best. But as for the people, where are they ? 

The historian says, " No time here to bother with 



176 LITERATI. 

them, I must write the great deeds of the mighty men 
of valor; the Little Church Around the Corner may 
do that sort of business! 

" The people are not of much account, anyhow ; the 
trouble with them is they don't know enough to get 
out of their own way ; or they are always traveling in 
their own dust, as Barnum once said of some people." 

Oh, the delights of caste ! How stupid everybody 
except oneself ! To look down on all ; to have a 
title! — is it general, business manager, president, doc- 
tor, lawyer, preacher? Trained to obeisance, to wor- 
ship position. Your superior, the litterateur, proudly 
commands attention ! 

Is it likely that literary people will go out of their 
way to say anything that will lessen their distinction 
as a class ? Adulation is dear to them ! It is only 
cranks, such as I, living at the dawn of a new idea in 
the human heart, that could thus go back on his kind ! 

All who are not cranks, listen to the Oracle : 

IMAGINARY. 

" A close observer of the truth must understand that 
people are very much like machines : they can do hard- 
bone labor, we all know that; but it is also as plain 
as the nose on a man's face that they need the strong 
hand of men of force and of character to keep them 
in check. 

" The leaders of mankind mav, and often do, have 



" GOD'S PLAN." 177 

their faults ; nevertheless, they are a strong, enduring 
segment of humanity, while the great body, herded 
like sheep, are moved hither and yon at the voice of the 
master. 

" If the masses were different, then we could get 
along without leaders, but so long as they are as they 
are, it is necessary to have those who can direct them 
and show them the way in whatever avenues of life 
you may place them. 

" And further, that is the reason, beyond a ques- 
tion, that it is better that the wealth of the land should 
be in the hands of the few — else, alas, who would 
take care of the millionaires' estates? These few are 
really the guardians of the public welfare. 

" Why, when this country was started, and it was 
said we believed so much in the people, it was prac- 
tically evident that we did not believe so at all. 

" Washington was no Democrat, and the government 
never has been run by the people. It is and always 
must be run by the leaders, the few men. Their wiser 
heads and more experienced thought direct. 

NEEDS TO BE CARRIED ! 

" The poor hod-carrier, content to run life on a 
narrow plane, sees little beyond his hod, and must al- 
low those who by nature and surroundings are fitted 
to look into such matters, run the government for him. 
12 



178 CAN THE ETHIOPIAN CHANGE HIS SKIN. 

" Your great exponent of Democracy, Thomas Jef- 
ferson, we should add, was a man of wealth, owning 
his slaves, his immense plantation, his library of thou- 
sands of volumes, the great chieftain of a small village, 
finally to become the leader of a nation. 

" He was a genuine Democrat of Democrats in 
theory, but in practice living like one of the finest of 
Southern country gentlemen. 

" At the same time, he was generous to a fault, un- 
pretentious in manners ; and withal, as fine a citizen 
as the country could boast." 

Isn't this democratic treatment of a great Demo- 
crat? Have we not given a fair presentation of the 
way ordinary, well-to-do men look at these questions 
of wealth, and of the proper standing of the leaders 
in society ? Isn't much of this simply because of birth ? 

OR THE LEOPARD HIS SPOTS? 

If I had been born rich I hardly see how I could ever 
have thought as I do now — the rich see one way, the 
poor another. 

But one of the greatest wrongs connected with these 
thoughts is that not only the rich but also the poor 
have believed in them. Haven't the poor believed that 
the leaders, the rich, the wealthy, were what they were 
because it was best ? 

Yes, or they wouldn't have been leaders and have 



" AIM HIGH AND GRAB YOUR CHANCES." 179 

been wealthy. And the more they received only 
showed the more desert, — the greater man. 

To many a poor man the whole case is summed up 
in his willingness to face the music and to look at 
his own imperfections — didn't have wit enough to be- 
come rich. 

You know as well as I that before the Civil War 
the slaves were as likely as not to think they were 
slaves because they were not equal to the whites ; and 
it could not be otherwise that many of them should 
have thought it was all right, and in God's plan. Their 
condition was such as to cause inferiority; but the 
wealth of the South is a monument to their industry. 

I'd hate to say that the very poorest people are as 
sound and solid and knowing, mentally and physi- 
cally, as are those better-off. 

Should I be writing this book if I deemed poverty 
a good thing? 

INFERNO. 

On the contrary, I believe it is the abomination of 
God's footstool ; responsible for more wickedness than 
anything else — except — and don't forget the exception 
— vast wealth! 

Wars, pestilence, famine, and vice are the boon com- 
panions of poverty and wealth. 

Who are the real leaders of the people ? — The people 
themselves, of course — good to reiterate. 



180 OVERTOPPED. 

Take a Napoleon, as good an illustration as one can 
find, a man who thought he could move, rule, and 
whip, if necessary, the whole world ; who looked upon 
the common people as needing just such a man as 
he to lead them; who regarded himself as a man of 
destiny — not a bad idea for any man to have — and far 
above the masses. 

He felt that he was born to lead; to be at the top, 
to control ; as surely as he felt that the common people 
were born to be controlled, to be led, and by him — 
their master, their superior. 

Napoleon would have been snuffed-out like a can- 
dle, — wouldn't have been a drop to the ocean, — if the 
people had not been with him. 

Did he ever make a move, ever write a decree, ever 
wage a battle, but that the age was right, the people in 
the humor, and educated to the standard necessary 
for such work to be done ? 

The real leader was the people. What was Napo- 
leon? 

He was a man, who filled a certain situation made by 
a civilized community. 

A CLOSE FIT. 

He never made that position, but whole ages have 
molded our systems of civilized conditions into such 
forms that he happened to fit them. 

Not only that, but, let us repeat, by the very neces- 



A " SUPPLY." 181 

sities of the case, a general is known to the world, 
while a carpenter is not; not because of the goodness 
of the general, nor his greatness, but because the po- 
sition is in itself an advertisement, and to be of any 
use the man must be known. If you are a lecturer or 
a preacher you will be known to a fairly large circle 
of people. 

Suppose a preacher, with a large congregation, hap- 
pened to be sick, they might fall back upon you or me 
as a last resort, for one time; then see what a large 
number of people might know us, even were we poorer 
at preaching than would be the corner grocery man. 

With a farmer or a blacksmith it would be almost 
impossible to be known to so many, unless " elected 
by the people to be justice of the peace." Even the 
President is often unknown until he becomes Presi- 
dent, and, if not unknown, comparatively of little in- 
fluence, afterward. 

Step right up, gentlemen, and take a look at the Em- 
peror ! 

TIED-UP. 

He is supposed to rule as no one else rules, — a veri- 
table god to millions of people — ; and yet, he can 
hardly turn over in bed except the people let him — 
built up, hammered in, and pounded down into a set 
place; not a subject but is freer than he. Talk about 
his being a leader! All leaders are led; they do the 



182 SEVERS THE PEOPLE! 

people's bidding, for they are the people's making ; and 
their wisdom, if they have any, is the gleanings of 
many minds, which is but to say the people have in- 
structed them. 

The poorest leaders have stupidly not done the peo- 
ple's bidding, and they have always come to grief. 
Look at the times when they changed kings faster 
than we change aldermen ! in those good old days 
when kings were comparatively poor, and " boodle " 
aldermen unknown. 

But, you say, suppose a man is their master — the 
master of the people — what then? Isn't he their 
leader? 

Suppose not the impossible ! He can't be and never 
was their master? Are you a master when the people 
say you must be a master? When the people say 
strike, and you strike, who is doing it if it be not the 
people ? 

DICTATOR. 

When a man is a bloody tyrant, as it is called, and 
cuts off the heads of people as if they were stalks of 
wheat, and gains skill in the business by plenty of 
practice, as did Peter the Great, what's the tyrant but 
the bloody people themselves, who look upon his deeds 
as the proper thing? 

Take the pretty little illustration along these lines 
of brotherly love, of the general who, to show his per- 



ROAD BLAZED. 183 

feet authority, casually points his finger to a couple 
of men on a high rock, and instantly they jump off to 
their destruction. 

That wasn't the commander's power at all, it was the 
perfection of belief of the people in such power, and 
in giving one man such power. Let your powerful 
commander try such tricks to-day, and see how quickly 
his own destruction will ensue. 

How often the historian speaks of the church lead- 
ing the people, and of the oppressions of the priest- 
craft. But have the people ever been led by the priests 
of any denomination? Haven't the people compelled 
the priests to do their bidding ? 

There is not a pulpit in the nation, — nor in any 
other nation, for that matter, — but that there is 
preached therein what the people want, not what the 
minister wants; else the minister would be minus a 
congregation, and, still worse, a salary. 

OUR WAY IS YOURS. 

In even the most enlightened churches in our cities 
clergymen preach only to that kind of audience that 
cares for the enlightenment they give; and if they 
preached differently, they'd have to step down and out 
— as many a man, true to his convictions, has done. 
The churches stand, and the preachers preach " to 
witness if I lie." Even though Heavenward, 'tis the 
desire of the people that guides the ministry — the true 



1 84 FOLLOWERS. 

leader, if such there be, but kindly follows the lead of 
his flock. 

We seem to be sure that the newspapers lead the 
people. Nothing is farther from the truth. They 
never lead. The best of them can only be better led 
than others. Never was there an editor who suc- 
ceeded in selling his paper, but he reflected the opinions 
of his patrons. How could he do otherwise? When 
a paper runs counter to our prejudices, don't we get 
another? — and it must suit those who still take it. 
Take the little " Liberator," published by William Loyd 
Garrison, do you suppose that circulated among those 
who hated Garrison? 

When one reflects upon these things, he wonders 
how any one can think that the people are led : they 
lead, from start to finish. 

Why, you have to begin even before the start ; for, 
unless the people's minds are ripe for the new idea, 
they won't even give it a hearing. 

IMPERIAL EDICT. 

And thus I listen to the reverberating musketry of 
the people's thought until its accumulating power, like 
resounding thunder, comes to my ears, and the people, 
in their grandeur, allow me the noble privilege of tell- 
ing their own story. 

It isn't necessary to suppose that because the leader 
doesn't lead, he is of no use — that isn't so at all. 



" LOOKING BACKWARD." 185 

Of course he is of use ; but he doesn't carry the peo- 
ple round in his pocket ; rather, they carry him round 
in their pockets, while lending him their pocket-book ! 

And the papers ! Do they lead ? Not at all. They 
advertise, and they place the popular idea where all can 
see it, and they blend the thought of a million. God 
speed to their work ! 'tis but the people marching on. 
Now, with kindly thought and keen discernment, let ye 
well-trained editor write of this book as the prophecy 
of the people for victory : poverty surrenders to justice. 

Let us take a step into the future. Looking back- 
ward, we thank the editors of many papers whose 
cordial words have so often delighted us, even though 
their praise has been greater than our deserts. Our 
success — beyond our most sanguine hopes — is due, in 
no small part, to the kindly attitude of our editorial 
friends. 

" The ring; " now comes to the front, and people say, 
" the ring " rules the poor with a rod of iron. 

Again we have the spectacle of a great city in the 
toils of a barbarous foe, a tyrant as bad as any mon- 
archy, utterly unscrupulous, looting the public treasury 
rather than caring a particle for the people — such at 
least has often been its history. 

SKILL IN HIS LINE. 

" And," as you say, " as to its leader, no words are 
hard enough for him; no kind of political corruption 
at which he is not the handiest of the handy. 



186 " PRACTICAL POLITICS/' 

" He sits in his office and dictates the whole scheme 
of party action. He appoints the different captains or 
generals, as the case may be. The ' Black lies ' and 
1 wicked plots ' come from his fertile brain or those 
of his satellites. 

" He knows just where to put his hand on the ' plug 
uglies ', when wanted for a row at the poles, or whom 
to depend on to get them there. ' He knows about it 
all ; he knows, he knows ! ' 

" And the primaries, those institutions of the popular 
will ! with what skill and dexterity they are managed : 
each part of the game is played with consummate art, 
from nomination to election, whether it's ' jollying,' 
' bulldozing,' or lying to — the people. 

" ' Theirs not to reason why,' but to ' pay the piper.' 
In truth, the people are never represented in the pri- 
maries or in the conclaves of political chiefs ; nor are 
their interests cared a rap for." 

FOLLOW THE TIDE. 

But in spite of all this, let us firmly " put the ques- 
tion " : Are not the people leading the politicians ? 
Are not the politicians simply their tools? Are not 
the politicians actually " whipped into line," — literally, 
slaves of the people? 

They are trying to win ; but who wants them to win ? 
who demands that they shall win? Isn't each side 
determined, above all things, that its own side and its 



WIN ANYHOW. 187 

own officials must win? And isn't every lie and trick 
rejoiced in so long as it catches the other side? 

The politician's lies are his ammunition; but who 
compels him to use that ammunition? — the very people 
whom he is supposed to lead. 

From the chief cook and bottle-washer down to the 
ordinary scullion, they must promise to fulfil the peo- 
ple's desires ; why, it's a dead-set cast-iron compulsion, 
that's what it is, no half-way matter about it. 

A secret conclave — lies concocted to deceive the peo- 
ple. Yes, but the people demand all, they give the 
power, they make the position, they inspire; and the 
politician is all eyes and ears to get their every whisper 
to do, or say he'll do, just what they want. 

As the son is to the father, so is the politician to the 
people, and when the father dictates without knowing 
how to exercise his power, and forgetting himself in 
idolizing his son, what can you have but a spoiled 
child? 

SCATTER INTELLIGENCE BROADCAST. 

To change all this, we need to intensify our activi- 
ties ; clear away the brushwood of foolish personal 
animosities, and work for that swiftly-dawning knowl- 
edge of how to run a government to our own advant- 
age. 

But we must work, work as men only work when 
digging out their brothers who are covered up by a 



188 NEVERTHELESS, THE BEST. 

mining catastrophe : such must be our war of peace. 

Now, though the leader of " the ring " may deal in 
" ways that are dark and tricks that are vain," yet he is 
true to a principle — the principle to win ! 

He " takes his instructions " from the people, and 
what do these men without work, without homes, with- 
out owning anything in this world, without a prospect 
of owning anything in the future — what under the 
sun can they care about this government? 

And especially, when, as is the case, many of them 
came to this country thinking that, at last, they had 
come to a free country, where there was plenty of work 
and good wages. 

Have they come to a country where the honest man 
can earn an honest living, and some day see wife and 
family happy and contented, not everlastingly working 
like galley-slaves for a mere pittance? 

What have such men to think of a government that 
pens them into tenements, works the life out of them, 
imprisons many in crowded, ill-ventilated shops, and 
then calls it all justice, freedom, liberty? 

ONLY A FEW HAVE " THEIR PRICE." 

Yet, when one thinks of the millions who, on elec- 
tion-day, stand in solid phalanxes opposite each other, 
who never swerve a hair's breadth because of money, 
whose conviction that the right is on their side deter- 



BORROWED THOUGHTS. 189 

mines their vote, one feels that the sterling integrity 
of humanity can never be overestimated. 

Still, we are not angels yet! And many a man 
would like to " get even " with the government that 
does so much talking and so little acting in his behalf ; 
and " the ring," in giving expression to this feeling, 
gives itself great credit for " leading the people." On 
the contrary, the thoughts and ideas of the people 
have simply been gathered up, as it were, and returned 
whence they came. 

Thus, when "the leader," with more force than ele- 
gance, says, " To hell with reform ! " it goes right 
to the hearts of the audience. What does reform mean 
to them? Are they at work? Has it meant a dollar 
in their pockets ? These people believe in " one-man- 
power," in dictatorship, in having a " master " over 
them. 

SUCCESS, THEIR BATTLE-CRY ! 

The " machine politician " is a little monarch in 
himself, the idol of those who want a " strong govern- 
ment." He wants to succeed; his constituents want 
him to succeed, and neither he nor they care a rye- 
straw how they succeed, so long as they get to the 
winning place. 

Now, as the audience gives a faint ripple of applause, 
and a great sigh of relief over that last argument, I 
take it as all I need for an encore — much to the regret 



190 AFRAID. 

of the audience — and shall finish this chapter with a 
short, sharp, and spicy little speech ; ahem ! 

Some one has the temerity to say to the great man — 
that is myself : — " It is my extreme modesty, that's 
what I like about me ! " — " I see you are generous and 
your intentions are all right, and once in a while you 
seem to have a glimmering of sense. Tell me, in a few 
words, and without any verbiage of eloquence, what 
you want this vast army of working people to do, 
these people who are honest enough, good enough, 
steady enough — we acknowledge all this, whether it 
be farmer, carpenter, hod-carrier, mechanic, or day- 
laborer. But, you know well enough, you don't want 
them to rule you; you, an intelligent man, trained 
to thoughtful observation, a philosopher, — withal, an 
equal of men of title and renown, — you surely don't 
want the rifl-rafr* of the world to be your rulers, when 
a person like you should rule thousands." 

Stop ! stop right there, " right in your tracks," and 
give me a chance. 

REGULATION POLITICIANS. 

Who under the light of Heaven is ruling me now? 

There's your question; and the answer is just as 
plain, too. 

For unadulterated ignorance and absolute wanton 
carelessness of the interests of the people, where do 
you want to go but to our legislatures? 



BOY RULERS. 191 

Stupidity and ignorance is rampant there ; that is, 
understand, I mean anything that is not simply and 
wholly a matter of their own gain; there they are as 
ready to spring as a steel trap set for a mouse; but 
when it comes to doing anything for which as a body 
they were ever instituted, surely that part of the whole 
matter is past redemption. 

Why, candidly, I'd be glad to take my chances on 
better conditions, if, instead of men, we fill our legisla- 
tures with genuinely honest boys, under fifteen years 
of age; the silly bills they introduce, their twaddle 
and personalities, their utter misconception of duty 
as representatives of the people! 

Did you ever hear a blue jay swear? No? Well, 
you should read Mark Twain's account of it; it fits 
the case exactly. 

MEN OF PRINCIPLE. 

I am talking about men, hark 'e unto that! I am 
talking about poor men who have not dabbled in 
politics. 

Besides, I am talking about men not skilled in tak- 
ing money from others, but skilled in making money 
for others to take. 

Any honest carpenter, shoemaker, blacksmith, or 
hod-carrier, and especially if he have some idea of 
his proper standing toward the masses — of whom he 
is one — is the man for my vote. 



192 THE DREAM OF A HUNDRED YEARS. 

Let him have never made a speech, have never writ- 
ten a word that has been in print, but simply been a 
good ordinary workingman, — the more intelligent the 
better ; and with such men in our legislatures, even 
though but partly filled by them, we would have a 
purification in politics such as hasn't been heard of 
for ages : a consummation of the efforts of the patriots 
of the Revolution to establish a Democracy. 

I don't mean any poor man who is a trickster in 
politics ; I mean the workingman, the workingman, the 
workingman ! — that's plain enough. 

As John Hancock said, when signing the Declara- 
tion of Independence, in a big round hand, " The 
British Ministers won't have to put on their specks 
to read that " ; and if you have read it a dozen times, 
just read it here once more. 

ASTONISHING, BUT TRUE. 

Can you think or dream of any greater outrage of 
political chicanery, than that the people who have 
placed in the world almost everything you can lay 
your eyes on, and whose integrity and energy is the 
foundation-rock upon which this or any other nation 
rests, have, practically, no representations in the gov- 
ernment ? 

It seems strange, indeed, that a country could start 
as if it were really democratic and interested in gen- 
uine equality, while hardly a single man of the class 



SPENDING OURS FOR OUR SAKE. 193 

I am talking about, the men to whom the country owes 
itself, should have been in our legislatures at all. 

Talk about taxation without representation! — when 
the only substantial part of the world is thrust aside 
as of no use ; while the mere surface — the wealthy, 
professional, literary, and business class — is allowed 
to manage the government, and regards itself as so 
remarkably endowed with intelligence and capacity 
that it should also have charge of the earnings of the 
rest of the world, because, forsooth, the rest of the 
world doesn't know how to spend its own money prop- 
erly ! 

Isn't this the hard-pan of truth ? 

Sorry am I, indeed, that it is. 

Let us have a little more of the true grit of intelli- 
gence, and less of its froth. 

The man who splits a rock, knows something. And 
I will take his knowledge rather than that of the man 
who looks on, — every time, — even if he does wear old 
clothes and doesn't look quite as respectable as he 
would if he had a little more of this world's goods 
and was used to fine society. 
13 



194 ENCHANTING. 



IX 



SUPPOSE we regale you with another incident 
" in the sad, sad lesson of loving ! " 

Did you ever see a picture of the loveliest 
young lady you could possibly imagine? Well, pick 
out such a one in some paper or magazine, and you 
will have the picture I once looked upon in real life. 
I couldn't believe it possible — such perfect loveli- 
ness ; and in the country, at that. 



O MY LOVE IS LIKE A RED, RED ROSE." 



But so it was, and that picture not only looked at 
me as I passed, but turned and looked after I had gone 
past. 

This beautiful vision was patting a big dog at the 
time, and standing at the gate of a fine, large old coun- 
try residence. 

After some love-affairs of greater or less moment, 
this was to be my last up to the present time. 

I haven't told you of my most heartless episode in 



QUANDARY. 195 

that line, for it hardly pays. This one came im- 
mediately after that, — as a sort of relief. 

What is life without change? — either money or cir- 
cumstance ? 

With such beauty before me, no wonder I lost my 
heart at once, — forgot all the other girls, and was to 
think of her and her only for a year or two subse- 
quently. 

As you must know, in this book, the event is all 
over; and I have never been quite sure whether I am 
sorry or glad. 

But that it makes me gloomy or sorrowful to relate 
these events of sadness, as they passed in my career, 
is altogether a mistake. 

" YEO HO ! LADS ! HO ! YEO HO ! " 

Ferocious beasts try the hunter's mettle; savage 
tribes descend upon the pioneer ; more formidable is a 
sweet girl's face to the lover. But all, with a laugh, 
mingle their stories in the crackling blaze of the old- 
fashioned fireplace! 

My family think that maybe I was not so much in 
love as I imagine, else I would not have been able to 
get over it so readily. Likely as not, they are right. 

Still, at the time I thought I would rather stand al- 
most any physical pain — even the cutting off of a leg 
or an arm — than to go through this delight of loving 
and losing. 



196 " MILLS OF THE GODS GRIND SLOWLY." 

But, at present, thank you, I'd much rather relate 
the experience of loving and losing, than that of having 
lost an arm ! 

At the same time, love has a way of getting in cuts 
and jabs that lets one know that when it comes to 
giving pain, old Dame Nature doesn't need any in- 
structions ! 

The young lady was a perfect rainbow in my 
thought. I attended the same church. I am not a 
churchman, — exactly, — but, " if they was all like you 
I don't know but I'd join them ! " 

However, it was some while before I got an intro- 
duction. That was accomplished at a sociable at one 
of the fine houses in the village. 

The young lady's family was very rich, but sensible 
and unpretentious withal ; while I was very poor — 
alack ! 

PRIDE GOETH BEFORE A FALL. 

But poverty, you know, wants to hold its head up ; 
and I did not want any girl to think I was not as 
good as she, even if she was rich. And I can tell you, 
I never carried myself one whit less of a man because 
I was not as well off as others. 

Not T ! I felt then — and I might as well own up 
that I feel now — as good as any millionaire " who ever 
did on horseback come." Maybe that made things 
less pleasant with us : it's bred in the bone that those 



LOVED TO DESTRUCTION. 197 

who have wealth, like you to appreciate it ; and some- 
times it shows good sense to appreciate it. Don't you 
say so, too? And the " cuts and jabs " of love might 
prove dainty little taps ! 

It might not be unfair to remark, just here, that 
it seems to me I have done a great deal that was un- 
fair in these matters, and that possibly, all along, even 
if I have loved to distraction, I was getting, as herein- 
before mentioned, proper recompense for misbehavior. 

For I would do and say things that would aggravate 
the young women very much : and that is hardly the 
way for true lovers to agree. 

You can imagine how much a young woman, talked 
of over all the village, would have had to lay up against 
me in the following instance : 

REVENGE. 

She had not treated me quite right, — as I considered, 
— and so, at a very delightful entertainment, I told 
her it was nearly time to go, leaving the impression 
that I would ask to accompany her home. Instead, I 
walked home without her. 

Still, I shouldn't wonder if all the time she hadn't 
cared two straws for me. 

In love, as in business, sufficient means, or equality 
of conditions, add much to self-assurance, and pave 
the way to success ; but, you see, I was aiming high 
— an heiress, where heiresses were scarce. 



198 DESTINY. 

But when under way before an audience, I feel 
dauntless, and having listened to the " tintinnabula- 
tion that so musically wells " of success, we naturally 
expect, by vigorous work, to enjoy more of those 
" molten-golden notes. " 

When I am a great orator, speaking to an audience 
of five thousand or so, and you come along and make 
it the five thousand and oneth, see if I don't have 
more success than I have had with " the lasses O ! " 

She managed to give me a pretty tough dose: once 
when we were playing a game called Professor. When 
her turn came to ask questions, she asked me, right 
before the whole company, if I was in love! 

COMMOTION. 

Well ! I was so dead in love, from the crown of 
my head to the sole of my foot, that it was a terrific 
conundrum ; and in the melee that went through my 
mind at the time, I don't know what I answered. I 
suppose it was so apparent that the question came 
promptly to her lips ; and in the laugh that followed 
an answer was not necessary. Love and revenge seem 
often interlinked ! It was after this I almost asked 
her to permit me to see her home, yet did not take her. 
She met her match. Alas, not a matrimonial match ! 
We were " quits ! " 

At one time I went with her and a number of young 



AN HEIRESS. 199 

men and women in a big two-horse wagon ; and after 
a pleasant entertainment, we all rode back. 

Isn't it fun ! — a rollicking party of young people off 
in one of those big, lumbering wagons, filled with 
straw, so that you are not bumped to pieces. And of 
course you have your arm round the fair young lady 
of your choice! / did not, else she would be telling 
me now what not to say on the subject! Let the fair 
creature yet to take her place, criticise with imperious 
air! 

Oh, well! it's just as well to laugh as cry over such 
things, or over anything, in fact. 

I am living now, and I expect to live for the next 
fifty years; therefore it would prove a long time to 
feel sad over one beautiful young woman, even if her 
father did own a good share of the country for miles 
around ! 

LOVING AND WINNING. 

And so I don't feel sorry. Indeed, I may tell you 
some day of a successful story in this line. Still, if 
it should be successful, I should never tell : it is best 
to wait till one gets to Heaven, where he can send the 
news forth in a golden trumpet. 

There is a solid grain of truth right there. How 
many marriages are made unhappy by taking out- 
siders into family troubles: worse than jumping into 



200 NO ADMITTANCE! 

a fire, I should say ; still, not being married, I am not 
an authority. 

" When I was playing with my brother," or, rather, 
when I was quarreling with him, when we were " little 
shavers " and were going for each other at a lively 
rate, a strange boy put his head over the fence and told 
us to go for each other. He mistook his man. We 
were not the kind that wanted interference in our pri- 
vate concerns, and, in letting him understand that he 
had better attend to his own affairs and let us alone, 
we forgot our own quarrel. 

It reminds me of having read somewhere that An- 
drew Jackson, sometimes remiss in his apparel, was 
told that a lady of distinction was waiting to see him, 
and a suggestion was made to him to " fix up " better ; 
he replied, that he once knew a man who made an in- 
dependent fortune by attending to his own business ! 

" HEAR THE MELLOW WEDDING BELLS." 

This dazzlingly pretty young woman kept me greatly 
captivated for a long time. I called to see her as 
often as I could, I've no doubt — it was but a few 
years ago. 

But, as will sometimes happen, there was " another 
Ben whose Christian name was John ! " and he " did 
me up," as one might say. 

However, I think I was " too slow for any use " — 
isn't that what the girls say? Here, for instance, what 



ONLY A MISS. 201 

do you think of this ? In the course of a pleasant en- 
tertainment, in the interchange of candies and mottoes, 
I gave her a ring, and she went round the room show- 
ing it to the rest as given from me. Now, why didn't 
I fix things right then and there ? and tell her to keep 
that ring until I should exchange it for one to blissfully 
bind us forever ! 

That suggestion came from my mother — a trifle 
late; but, dear me, there are others! It might prove 
a perfect success next time ! 

Well, I was never up to anything, except to worship 
the girls. And I am afraid I always will. 

If a man is only half a man till he is married, — and 
I am convinced that is true, — why shouldn't he wor- 
ship the other half, and trust that he sometime will 
really be a man ? 

MORNING MEDITATION. 

To show you how matters were finally concluded, as 
we draw a dim religious light over the close of this 
little drama, let me give you a scrap of poetry. 

I wrote it one morning before seven o'clock, and 
finally presented it to the young woman, though no 
more was I to think of her. 

I am thankful to say that I have been able to put 
a cast-iron padlock on my mind in such cases. 

Let the man " used to war's alarm " laugh at such 



202 " ALL THE WORLD LOVES A LOVER." 

adventures. The cannon's mouth may have no terrors 
for him ; but a fair woman has been known to subdue 
many such a one. 

THE WARRIOR LOVER'S LAMENT. 

Before another moon shall have passed 

Into the filmy depths of an unknown intensity, 
Another lover shall depart ; 
And the sweet and gentle zephyrs 

Of life's fading- joys shall no longer cause 
A dulcet requiem in his heart. 

He passes, and 'twere well, 

Though the symposium of earth's ecstasies 
Expressed in the graceful mien 
Of his heart's desire 

Should no longer thrill him 
With unwonted zeal. 

Afar he shall roam, 
Singing a song, 
And the world shall rejoice; 
For 'tis the blithesome essence 
Of things of inharmonious intent 
From which we evolve a life 
Both long and wisely spent. 

Do you think she ought to mind my printing that in 
this book ? 

If it is not popular, she will never hear of it; and 



BYRONIC. 203 

if it be, she might even feel a trifle honored by having 
had such a lover ; don't you think ? 

And, as she is married and I am not, she ought to 
be very glad to have me add a little incident that would 
help to make people interested in the book. 

If she be selfish, and think it a shame to have printed 
a line already known to a few friends only, then I 
will say, it is too bad; and if I had only known what 
she ever thought of the lines, or what she ever thought 
of me, it might have saved me a little experience — 
that's all. 

Speaking of poetry or rhymes, here is another, I 
once read this to my brother in a casual sort of way, 
and then asked him who he thought it reminded him 
of. 

He said he thought it sounded something like Byron ! 
You may be sure that was the best compliment in the 
line of poetry I ever received. A good one on my 
brother ! 

The greatest man the world e'er saw 

Had his many failings ; 
'Twas not his failings made him great, 

Nor yet his lack of failings; 
But 'twas, that fail as fail he might, 
He'd strive again to do the right. 

Some one asked me the other day if I was writing 
any poetry nowadays. 



204 OLD SOL ON SALE. 

When I was in the rhapsodies of ecstatic love, I 
poetized. 

A great poet says, " Think not the composing of a 
deathless lay the pastime of a drowsy, summer day," 
and I think I had better stick to prose ; it would be too 
hard work to put such a book as this into poetry ! 

Now, as the piper has piped his minstrel lay, will 
the audience be so kind as to listen to his story; for, 
be it told, he hath said, " with the emphasis of his hand 
on his heart, that there was something rankling here, 
which he wished to relieve " — vanity of vanities, saith 
Webster, that one so great should quote me ! 

My subject, " oh! ye children of a conquered race! " 
is the mightiest robbery atween the two ends of time. 

Let us take the universe — excuse me, we will take 
the sun, to start with ! 

If the sun's in the market, I should be pleased to 
pocket it as the best means of robbing the people. 

Wouldn't they pay me their last cent, or last billion 
dollars, if I owned the sun ! 

" Going, going, gone ! " — and I missed the sun ! 

TAKES OUR BREATH AWAY. 

How would the sky do for a monopoly, in lieu of the 
sun? Or, "here's your last chance, only a few more 
left ! suppose you take the air ! " 

I'll go you one better, my friend, being a practical 






WORK CORNERED. 205 

man, and not used to dealing in the heavens, I'll take 
the earth! Well said; and the few bought it up. 

Do you think this is all nonsense? — I guess not. 

Step out on the outskirts of this city ; there is an 
empty lot, except for old cans " and bits of harness 
and straps and strings." 

Yes, and there are other lots, numbers and numbers 
of them — millions of acres, bread and butter to many 
and many a starving man and his family. 

But what of it? Speculation's desert waste, my 
friend : and you and I can sit on the fence and say : 

" Work, work ; oh, why can't I work ! 

" Give me a shovel, give me a trowel, a hoe. 

" I'll dig with my hands, yes I will, and praise the 
Lord and men, too, if you will only let me go to work 
to earn an honest living on that bare land." 

Oh, pshaw ! that's nothing ! Why, there are millions 
and millions of acres, almost millions of square miles, 
of unused land in this greatest of all the nations. 

" Where is it, Jack ? Where is it ? Where is it ! 
Taken from us it is." By Jove! Old Shakespeare 
said the truth that time ! 

Enough land to make five States as big as Ohio, 
owned by capitalists in Europe — " what in the name ! " 
Don't get excited ; they may be good men and true. 

ISABELLA. 

Even the Queen of Spain, it is said, owns more 



2o6 FOUGHT AND WORKED. 

property in the City of Brooklyn than any other in- 
dividual. 

What have the foreign owners of these vast stretches 
of territory done to make it so valuable? Nothing; 
lived in Europe, that's all. 

And if they would take up their residence in the 
moon, the land would increase in value just the same. 

The early settler, the pioneer, the backwoodsman, 
our forefathers in the Revolution ; men like Daniel 
Boone who fought savages with one hand, while the 
other was on the plow; the poor farmer, working his 
eighteen and twenty hours a day ; the mechanic and 
the people of trades in our cities, towns and villages ; 
— work of the most energetic people in this world, — 
to these, to their work, their hard, persevering industry, 
is due the value of every acre and every foot of land 
in this or any other nation. 

" Oh ! " says the capitalist, " you're stone-blind, and 
no mistake, can't you see that we put our capital in 
the land?" 

Yes; paid for the privilege of extracting an annual 
tribute from the people. 

WHO GOT IT? 

Do you see that little speck in the air — that's our 
balloon; we've been all round the world to see how 
it's owned. We'll drop right down here in New York 



ONLY EQUITY NEEDED. 207 

City — 400 years ago, twenty-four dollars; to-day, bil- 
lions ; who did it ? 

You ; certainly you, the people. And we've found 
it the same the world round. Here comes a tidal 
wave; it sweeps you, the people, all off — what's the 
city worth? — Nothing. 

From one dollar or less to fourteen millions an acre 
— that's the record; made by you, made by me, made 
by every honest worker in the land. 

Poverty ! Great Jehoshophat ! Poverty ! There's no 
poverty. Am I talking sense ? Am I blind ? 

Here's your mountain of gold! — right at your feet. 
Start from the top of it, — Broadway and Wall Street 
will do ; now move toward the outskirts of the city. 

Look at every town — village — hamlet — city; haven't 
you the same mountain of gold? 

Every cent, every dollar, every million dollars, every 
billion dollars that have been added to the value of 
that land, from year to year, since it was virgin land 
as God left it, have been made by the people. 

THE MILLIONAIRE'S STORY. 

" My grandfather owned twenty lots in Chicago. 
He sold a few from time to time, either to obtain suffi- 
cient money to build on the lots he had left or to pay 
taxes, or have an income. To-day I am worth ten 
millions." It is " plain for all folk to see " who made 
those millions — no riddle about that. 



208 UNTO CESAR THE THINGS. 

Have you heard the story of the Lenox Farm of 
forty acres, near Central Park? 

It was bought of a widow, and a large price — five 
thousand dollars — paid. 

But the generous buyer suggested in his will that it 
be kept, as it might be valuable some day. That little 
farm increased in value from five thousand to fifteen 
million dollars or so ; and is there a ten-year-old child 
who couldn't tell who made the increase? 

Surely, the facts are plain. If you or I own land, 
we can't make it increase in price, can we — the bare 
land? The community does that for us. 

Then who ought to have that increase ? 

Now then, as oil on troubled waters, comes the one 
tax : " To Mary Queen the praise be given, she sent 
the gentle sleep from Heaven that slid into my soul," 
as the one tax comes into the mind to dispel the fear of 
eternal oppression. 

WHICH ARE CAESAR'S. 

It comes to let all thinking men know there is a prac- 
tical way out of financial wickedness other than " by 
dealing out flannel and sheeting a little below cost 
price ! " when we know that the poor man pays for 
his charity and supports those who give it to him. 

Yes, the one tax comes to open the way to men's 
ownership of themselves, to homes and peace and a 



REFERENCE. 209 

mighty future, instead of the dried-up skull of a de- 
mocracy. 

But how will one tax do all this? 

Simply by taking this mountain of gold I've been 
speaking of — by taking for the people the yearly trib- 
ute levied by the foreigner or by our own speculators. 

It would be almost a guarantee of a home of 
his own, steady work and good wages to every able- 
bodied earnest worker in the land. 

And if in this age of the world, you are looking for 
any more than this, I can refer you only to Heaven 
itself. 

" Lend me thine ear, Clarinda, for a moment," and 
I will show you the truth of this little nugget of golden 
possibility. 

We'd like to have the home of our own; and we 
should like to have the one tax to get it with. 

Would there be a vacant lot or vacant strip any- 
where? Wouldn't millions of acres be thrown open 
for use ? — held now on speculation. 

But there would be no speculation if the yearly in- 
crease in the value of the land was taken for the people. 

KEEP OFF THE EARTH ! 

Wouldn't the people go for these lands? Go for 
them! As well ask if a man would put bread to his 
mouth when he is starving. Look at the pioneers of 
14 



210 DISTRIBUTE TRIBUTE. 

the Far West ! Look at the opening of the Oklahoma 
Territory ! Look at the Puritans ! 

Do you suppose they would have come here as they 
did if every acre of land had been held on speculation, 
and they had seen a sign on Plymouth Rock, " No tres- 
passing here ! " 

People say workingmen won't leave the cities. Did 
you ever see a man who would not pick up gold if he 
had the chance ? That's what I am talking about now ; 
not about isolating men from their fellows for less 
reward than they obtain in the city. 

Twenty times this annual tribute is an average price 
of land ; so that we have nineteen times as much left 
to make our start on our little place as we should have 
had before — that's about it ! 

Yes, sir, a home of your own will be in plain sight ; 
for wages will rise as surely as the sun shines, as surely 
as a more equal distribution of wealth would make 
wages greater. 

People would leave the cities and give others a 
chance ; rents would go down. 

WOULD HAVE TRIBUTE FOREVER. 

A distinguished man says rents won't go down be- 
cause men of means won't build if building won't pay ; 
that is, unless they can get the same rents as at present. 

Where will they put their money ? 

Ah, one-tax is not a little mite of a remedy ! It's 



u BUT , TIS ENOUGH " 2II 

like some mighty Atlas carrying a new world upon 
his shoulders; big enough as a starter, in all con- 
science, if we can only ever get it. 

Where's he going to put his money if he's not going 
to build? Does the capitalist propose to get off the 
land? Salt mines, gold mines, iron mines, copper 
mines, silver mines, coal mines — the one-tax takes 
them all in and give their yearly rental to the people. 
It would give all a fair chance in a great Klondike 
discovery, and, while destroying the chance to make 
millions would also destroy the barbarous condition 
characteristic of such discoveries, and prove a wage- 
raising influence for the nation, if not for the world. 
Let the millionaire put the stored-up labor of others 
in railroads, trolleys, telephones, telegraphs. Their 
franchises mean the most valuable strips of land on 
earth; our one-tax puts a damper on these bonanzas 
in the future. 

There's the Standard Oil — beautiful ! same as a mine, 

FREE. 

valuable land; a thousand could deal in oil instead of 
one — no more shall they " fly to woods and caverns 
when they spy thy thrice-accursed sail ! " 

Rubber trust, paper trust, rope trust! 

Well, our one-tax will come near enough to them 
to make them shiver till they have the ague, while 
the people will come in for their innings. 



212 ALL REST, NO WORK. 

" But," say our opponents, " why not tax improve- 
ments, for they as well as people add value to land." 

Do they ? 

Houses can't walk, boards can't talk, rooms can't 
make themselves agreeable. 

An improvement can't make money, can't labor, can't 
buy and sell ; can't jew a man down to the last cent, 
can't eat, drink, and be merry. 

What can it do? Stay right where it is till the 
end of the world — it rests forever ! 

But people labor, they have desires, wants, ambi- 
tions. Place your house a thousand miles from any- 
where or anyone — and it is valueless. 

Place your house where the people are, and you 
have not only the value of the labor in the house, but 
the people will add value to the spot you place it on, 
because they make it of use, make it a center of at- 
traction. 

No, sir! neither doors, windows, curtains, roof, nor 
walls will make a cent of money in eternity, — reckon- 
ing eternity from beginning to end, — any more than 

DROP, BANANA, DROP ! 

if you should lay beneath some fine bunch of bananas 
in the tropics, and a luscious banana should take a 
good aim and direct itself into your mouth, all prop- 
erly peeled ! — nature scorns to work for us. 

Still, you have placed the improvement there. Cer- 



TRAMP TAX. 213 

tainly, as you would place a basket of oranges in the 
center of a lot of boys and girls ; pay the men for 
placing it there. 

The basket is covered. Uncover it — a discovery. 

There are undiscovered gold mines. Do they make 
the land around them valuable? Discover them; you 
have placed them in the eye of the community, and who 
gives them and the land around them value? The 
community. 

How would this one-tax affect the farmer? Of 
course, we all know the farmer is rich. Are not his 
the cattle upon a thousand hills? Ah, the millionaire 
farmers ! 

If you have ever paid taxes you know that the rich 
pay less than any one else in proportion. The poor 
pay the most, until you get down to the tramp, when 
all is taken from him, even to decent clothes — not so 
far from the truth ; for the tramp is society's making. 

Maybe the farmer isn't so rich after all. Then we 
will put all his taxes on land ; hasn't he enough taxes 
already? Enough? Taxes on his tools, buildings, 
clothes, food — that is nearly enough! 

Sweep them all away and try one-tax. 

A CHANCE FOR HIS LIFE. 

How does that work? Isn't it as good as oats to 
a starving horse? Don't you and I see how the rich 
would be caught? 



2i 4 CAN'T SHIFT THE LAND. 

Surely the farmer toiling for bare subsistence, would 
rejoice to give the rental value of his land, — if he owns 
it, — to be rid of every tax that produces millionaires. 

Please show me the farmer's mines, his railroad 
franchises, and his million-dollar acre lots in the city. 
Slide your taxes all on them ; and then think of the 
millions upon millions of the railroad kings alone that 
might have been pocketed by the hard-working farmer 
and his coadjuters in every community. 

How about personalty? All in sight with the far- 
mer ! all out of sight with the rich : to the rich a sweet 
morsel ; for it is dust in the eyes of the poor. 

As the rich swears them off, the poor man pays the 
rich man's tax. But the poor swear not at all. 

Here is one curious fact connected with the one 
tax ; and that is that one would not be paying any 
tax at all! If we all make the land valuable, then 
the tax-payer would simply be paying back what the 
people have given. The land-owner becomes the tax- 
payer for every man, woman and child in the nation. 
Rents go down, you better believe; and the rich men 
will be glad enough to take less for their money. 

ADVANCE INCH BY INCH. 

One of the great beauties of the one-tax is that 
you don't have to take all the yearly tribute to the rich 
at first. Go slow, take part, remove supports with 



BEST FOR THE TIME. 215 

care, till they stand on their own feet as proudly as 
an honest man. Keep putting more and more taxes on 
land. Oh ! but the rich can rent better land than the 
poor man, so what's the use of your one-tax? — pays 
into the rich man's hand every time. 

Isn't there a little difference between the rich man's 
paying rent and his taking rent? That's difference 
enough ; the greatest monopoly on earth ; and he can't 
make a cent out of it. 

Some people think the one-tax is not great enough. 
Its only trouble, as I see it, is that it's too grand. 
It's so immense that if it were not for its simplicity, 
it would not be practical. 

Put all your taxes on land, and according to the 
value of the land — that's the one-tax! 

You can see it, I can see it, a ten-year-old child can 
see it; the world is seeing it, and we will live to see 
it in operation, — see if we don't ! 

" COMING EVENTS CAST THEIR SHADOWS BEFORE." 

Every time we hear a word about taxation in which 
there is any thought of taxing the rich more and the 
poor less, we are hearing a faint sound of the one-tax. 

Every time it is proposed to tax less and less things, 
we are hearing a tinkling sound of the one-tax. 

Every time that somebody is crank enough to sug- 
gest that land should be taxed more, or that vacant 



2i6 FRIEND TO ALL, ENEMY TO NONE. 

land should be taxed the same as other land, we are 
hearing the sound of the one-tax. 

" And the muttering grew to a grumbling, and the 
grumbling grew to a mighty rumbling," and that mut- 
tering and grumbling will turn into a genuine cyclone ; 
and " all at once and all over " we will sit down 
some morning and read in the papers : " Here's Mr. 
One Tax at last ; he has come along by a slow train, 
— like everything good." 

" And," says Mr. One Tax, " I have come to stay, 
to live right among the people, to be a true friend to 
liberty ; and shall be the greatest friend the people 
ever had, and without distinction of classes. 

" I'll befriend the rich from themselves — their great- 
est enemy. 

" And when Time's benignant face looks down upon 
the United States centuries hence, he will say : ' Yes, 
that country just saved itself by adopting the one- 
tax. If it had waited much longer, it would have 
been one trust, one corporation, one department store 
— all run by one man, who cleared his billions of dol- 
lars yearly, and kept the United States for his coun- 
try residence ! " 



FIELD, DUNGEON, AND ESCAPE." 217 



X 



HAIR-BREADTH escapes ! There's the ticket 
for you ! If I could fill a book with them, 
my fortune would be made — sure. 
Wouldn't you like to bet — if you were a betting 
man — that thousands have had hair-breadth escapes, to 
one who ever put them in print? 

But here's one; and in the time when it happened 
it was exciting enough! Kindly accompany me on a 
trip out West, where I stayed for the year. A run- 
away team of horses ! 



Sye Rodman was the driver — the young workman 
on the place. He had two very spirited young horses 
attached to a well-loaded wagon, and the load was to 
be left in a little pear-orchard near the house. I re- 
member the pears distinctly, for they were little dwarf 
pear trees, and bore fruit only boys know how to eat 
" out-of-hand ! " But it is my impression that that 
fruit was not for eating, but for selling. Anyway, I 
didn't get any of those fine, large pears. 



218 "O MY PROPHETIC SOUL!" 

Sye drove the horses from house to house and down 
a line between the pear trees, and must have turned 
out of the lane a little way. He halted the horses just 
across a ditch, so that their forefeet were on one side 
and their hindfeet on the other. As the ditch was 
at right-angles to the lane, to go back, it was necessary 
to cross the ditch, turn round, and come back down the 
lane. 

And now occurred one of those curious incidents 
that lend faith to that little dash of superstition that 
we all have in us, and make us feel as if we, once in a 
while, could foresee an event : such, for instance, as 
the success of this book! 

" THE RAPIDS ARE BEFORE YOU." 

I asked Sye what he would do if those horses should 
run away. I don't suppose I really thought they would ; 
I asked merely out of curiosity. He said, Oh, he 
would turn them into a fence corner. 

So I jumped aboard, — in the hind-end of the wagon, 
— and they started off. Sure enough, they ran away. 
I think myself that Sye was a little to blame for leav- 
ing the horses standing astride the small ditch ; they 
naturally would jump at the very first start, — which is 
what they did, — and away they ran ! 

He must have managed them somewhat at first, for 
they had to turn and go toward the house. And the 



° NOW FOR THE FINISH ! AT THE TURN." 219 

fence corner was as straight ahead as you could ask 
it to be ; I was confident he would run directly into it. 

But he never thought of that. A little this side of 
that fence corner was a gate, and still nearer, a large 
walnut tree. Around this tree went the horses for all 
they were worth, then into the gate. 

This gave the wagon a tremendous swing round, as 
it went through, and with this fling it struck against the 
gate-post, and the wagon was pretty well broken-up. 

As for me, I must have gone out with that swing 
round the tree, and maybe, instead of the horses being 
stopped by that fence corner, I was! 

THE WORLD DISAPPEARED. 

At any rate, I was insensible for a minute or so; 
the only time in my life that good old hard horse-sense 
ever left me! Maybe it had gone to join the horses; 
they needed it ! A sore shoulder was all the harm that 
experience did for me. A little caution and care would 
have prevented it, just as it saved Captain Marino 
Leboffe and his crew from perishing, with thirty thou- 
sand people, when, with but half a cargo, he sailed 
from the harbor of St. Pierre on the day before the 
awful eruption of Mount Pelee. 

And think! I can tell of another hair-breadth es- 
cape. One should be enough for a quiet young man 
like myself, but two is what you might call a " royal 



220 OWNER OF A PALACE. 

flush " — isn't that the term you use in poker ? " You 
use?" you see, I say. Oh, well, I am not much of a 
card-player ; used to play " Little Casino " with my 
brother; or is it just " Casino "? 

No matter, we played till we got sick of it — when 
we gave it up ; and now I am too busy telling the world 
what it should do, to play cards! But as to this 
" closest call " I ever had : It was a few years ago, 
when we had a little place in the country. 

Ha, ha ! I was nearly caught napping ! You might 
think I owned my palatial residence in the country and 
also had one in the city. 

If that were the case, I'd leave this book for you to 
finish — it's a fearfully hard job ! Moreover, who in all 
this wide world will ever publish it? 

A JOB FOR JOB. 

You better believe, though, it's going to be published 
when I have written it, even if I have to set up the type 
and print it myself. That would be a job ! 

Now, excuse me, and I will go ahead. This incident 
was in this wise : There was a lane at the foot of the 
hill, and a gate at the foot of the hill, to enter the lane 
by, and on this gate. . . 

Well, first, I started down the hill as fast as I 
could run, racing with the dog, Prince, to see if I 
could beat him. I kept ahead. The hill was pretty 



WIRED. 221 

steep, and it is not very safe to run down a steep hill 
as fast as you can at any time ; but, then, one will not 
always be careful. 

Across this gate that I was making for, were strung 
several strands of barbed wire. Some one had gone up 
the hill, and left one strand of wire running from 
gate-post to gate-post — maybe to keep the cow out the 
lane ; the gate was wide open, and the wire — invisible, 
except at close range — was pretty slack. 

" On came the whirlwind " — Prince and I, for all 
we were worth ; never a thought of danger ahead. 

And that wire — barbed — took me right across the 
throat ! My whole weight was stopped by it, although 
the wire gave a good deal. Astonishing as it is to re- 
late, — else I wouldn't relate it at all, — those barbs on 
the wire never cut my throat. 

NOT SNUFFED OUT. 

That means, of course, that I am a .man of destiny, 
exactly as our old friend Napoleon was, who, for once 
in his life, instead of taking his snuff himself first, 
gave it to his dog. The dog died; for the snuff was 
poisoned, and Napoleon was left to fight many battles; 
while I — Mr. Printer, find an extra large " I " — am 
left for greater battles — but battles of peace, remember 
— than Napoleon ever dreamed of, even in the excite- 
ing days of his greatest sanguinary conflicts, when 
royalty trembled at his feet. 



222 " HIS TASTE FOR FAULTLESS FACT." 

I only received a scratch or two, with a little bleed- 
ing; and only the least bit of a scar to identify me by ; 
so if you don't believe me, look and see that scar ! Only 
two of the hair-breadth variety ; so I will tell an in- 
cident of another kind. 

When I was twelve or thirteen I used to travel about 
considerably, because I could go at half-fare. I 
therefore felt very sorry when I became too old or too 
big to pass for a boy of the requisite age. As it would 
cost but little, I was often sent on a collecting tour, 
and reduced expenses still further by selling little lith- 
ographs, which were quite popular. 

A PEACEFUL HARBOR. 

Once I went to a New Jersey town, and, as was often 
the case, I had started with no more money than was 
sufficient to reach my destination, expecting to sell or 
collect. This time, by some mischance, I arrived at the 
town late, and didn't know where to stay. What was 
I to do? Well, on the big stoop of a large hotel was 
one of those hearty, good-natured women, who couldn't 
refuse to do a good deed if she tried. I laid my griev- 
ance before her. 

Whether she was the wife of the proprietor or not I 
don't know, but, at any rate, I was crying at the time, 
and she let me stay all night; and I had my breakfast 
in the morning also. That finished a little incident in 
which no money was involved. 



LONESOME. 223 

I remember another occasion, when, in about the 
same region — Northern New Jersey, among the pic- 
turesque mining-towns — I found myself at night a 
long way from the next stopping-place, where probably 
there was a little business to be done. 

I was still but a child, and the tears would come as 
I left the house. 

Just then the man came in and asked what that little 
boy was crying about. Result : I was called in and 
stayed all night, had a play with his children, and was 
sent on my way rejoicing next morning. 
didn't care for looks. 

It was in this region that I saw the women meet and 
take snuff together. They had a little brush made of 
iron wood, which they called a " boonder," — but not in 
the dictionary, so far as I can see. 

They would dip this brush into the snuff and rub it 
on their teeth, it making the teeth very black, as I 
remember. 

Tracing memory's tablet, we note another incident 
characteristic of the varied experience of the traveler. 

I had left a town, or mining-village, to call on a 
man and see if I could deliver a book to him. It was 
a long walk, but I finally found his home. And that 
reminds me, it was more like the home of savages than 
any I had ever seen, yet I was informed, on good 
authority, that the man was well-off. 



224 A SAVAGE HOME. 

It was one of those little, one-story, country barns 
of houses, way up in the mountain. A half-dozen large 
girls were playing not far off. 

I went to the house. The floor was bare, and a big, 
powerful woman, slatternly dressed, and barefooted, 
came to the door. 

To deliver a book there was disheartening, even if 
the man had agreed to take it. But I knew it would 
not help matters to tell her, so I asked about the man ; 
he was expected home before long. 

" an' the gobble-uns 'll git you 
ef you don't watch out ! " 

So I went down the road, and waited to see him. As 
it was now growing late, I started back to the village, 
some three or four miles distant. 

Now, you may be a man, and used to roughing it, 
but when you are tired, and it is late, and you are 
hungry, and on a lonely road, a stranger to everybody, 
things aren't what you might call " pleasant." 

I tried to stop at one house. The woman was quite 
severe with me for being out at that hour, and not hav- 
ing made better calculations for the night. 

I let her know, nevertheless, that I was hungry, 
whereupon a girl brought me a large slice of a sort of 
cake. After I ate it, I was in a better state of mind to 
continue my journey: I would take to the woods if I 
found it impossible to stay anywhere. 



HALLOO, THERE! 225 

I got my bundle of books from one house where I 
had left them, but I couldn't stay there. 

One of my customers was the foreman of the mine ; 
but as he was a big man in that community, I was 
afraid he would not take me in at that hour — ten — 
long after bedtime in the country: Washington's re- 
tiring time, two hours late for Li Hung Chang, four 
hours too soon for Napoleon. I determined to try him, 
so I went to the house — a nice one — and roused him. 
He put his head out the window, and I asked him if he 
could keep a foot-sore and weary traveler over-night, 
expressing myself, no doubt, as sorry to disturb him at 
such an hour. 

THEY ARE MYRIADS. 

He kept me over-night, and wouldn't take a cent for 
it, either. Thus we meet good people every now and 
then in this world; and it's a benediction every time. 

But that woman's finding fault with me reminds me 
of the story an old soldier used to tell : 

As he was being transferred from Andersonville to 
Libby Prison, he and a companion agreed to try to 
leave the car. 

So he managed to get off and roll down the bank, 
like a log; and, for a wonder, without being discov- 
ered. He was almost starved, and was suffering from 
the scurvy, — destruction almost as sure as bullets. 



226 CAPTURED. 

He wandered round, obtaining food from the ne- 
groes, and ate and ate, still seeming never satisfied. 

Going through a field of sweet potatoes, he ate them 
raw. And that was his best medicine. He went 
through that field, I guess, before he saw the darkies. 
The farmer coming along, the fugitive laid down be- 
tween the rows and wasn't discovered. 

One night he camped in one of the little sheds so 
common in the open fields of the South ; the next 
morning he was discovered. 

The farmer gave him a severe lecture as he was 
being taken to the house, about the wrongfulness of 
trespassing on people's property in that kind of way; 
but before the escaping prisoner departed, he was 
given an ample supply of provisions. 

A FREE LECTURE. 

This is but an incident of an intensely interesting 
story, as I remember his telling it. 

But that was a queer time to find fault with him ! es- 
pecially as that little trespassing alone saved his life. 

The farmer must have been very generous to have 
given him the provisions, after all. But he and the 
woman who found fault with me were alike ; they could 
see only one side of the story. And, like a good many 
people, they probably wouldn't see the other side, no 
matter what one said. Like the priests of old, who 






LIFE AS IT IS. 227 

were so sure that stars could not be seen by the aid of 
the telescope, that they would not look through to see ! 

I trust that the old soldier won't mind my giving 
this little hint of his story. 

Besides, this book is mine ! Need I withhold the play 
of my imagination? Who will say the old soldier is 
not a myth — except, perchance, it be himself ! " Ha, 
ha ! " say I, — as the reader, in high dudgeon, closes the 
book with a bang, " Perhaps the writer is a myth 
also ! " But, myth or fact, he has a great truth to 
preach, the sunlight of which is full of good cheer and 
hope and maketh for a jollier world. 

" Be careful, there ! Keep quiet ! Feet be still ! " 
says the clog dancer when he hears a jig; and that's 
the way to feel for a great cause — then work. 

ROUGH-HEWN. 

At one time I had three customers for books among 
some people up " on the mountain," some four miles 
from where we were living. 

These people were all poor ; or seemed to be. They 
hauled wood for a living, and were wood-choppers as 
well. 

I have said that the canvasser for books learns to 
know human nature perfectly when he is in the busi- 
ness all the time. On the other hand, he gets rusty 
when he is out of it for some time, even if he has an 
aptitude for reading character. 



228 MOUNTAINEERS. 

I went up to deliver these books ; good-sized books, 
too, four dollars apiece. 

No money with the first man! 

Well, if you don't trust a man you can't expect him 
to do much for you ; so I left the book. The next man 
was in the same fix ; I left his book also. The third 
man — this is no fairy tale — I had to treat as the other 
two. 

Three books ! Anyone of your fairly well-off class 
would say that I would never get a cent for them. 

I did not, in fact, dare tell my family what I 
had done. But kindly persistence may work wonders. 

UP BEFORE BREAKFAST. 

I rose several mornings at three o'clock and went up 
to these men ; and, at times, it was pretty cold weather. 

But these men did their very best for me ; and when 
they saw that I could be up there even before they 
started off to work, and that I was never overanxious, 
suspicious, nor angry ; when they saw I was pleasant, 
and had a fellow-feeling for them, they were stirred 
to do their part in turn ; so, finally, I got every cent of 
my money. And I sold another book right among 
those men, who lived with their families in four or five 
houses quite close together. 

But I could always collect every cent due me from 
any one, if I was only given time enough. 



OLD HUNDRED. 229 

I remember once, after making several calls upon a 
poor man, he handed me out the last two dollars, — 
quite unexpectedly to me. 

To prove that I am not so much on the rush for 
money as some men are, I asked that man — and I meant 
it, too — if he could spare all that money ; because, if 
not, I would return him part, or all: — I'm not quite 
sure I said " all ". — I would wait longer. 

And if a man is to live a hundred years and wants 
to keep every customer he gets, that is not a bad policy. 

COLD CUTS. 

But there have been times when the tables were 
turned. 

I went into New Hampshire once with a man to 
illustrate lectures for him. I received a " liberal re- 
tainer " for my services as an expert ; we gave four 
lectures a week. 

I don't think he ever made anything like as much as 
I did. He seemed also to think I was very clever at a 
bargain ! And there were incidents for you ! It was 
very cold weather; sometimes ten and twenty degrees 
below zero. 

We rode round to places from seven to fifteen miles 
from his family, where he was staying, and would give 
the entertainment; then I would pack things — a good, 
solid hour's work — and we would return home. I tell 



230 ARCTIC WEATHER. 

you, it was a cold ride ! He was heavy and solid, and 
would sit in the wagon all the way coming back, but I 
would get out and run behind. And here comes in a 
little story of cold weather : 

At that time, I used to take a cold bath in the morn- 
ing, which, in such a climate, even to a Siberian trav- 
eler like DeWindt, might have seemed heroic. 

One morning going through this course, it seemed 
to me it was pretty cold, and I could not but notice that 
there was a pane of glass out the window. The room 
was small, at the end of the house, without heat. I 
went ahead, however, but got through pretty quickly; 
when I went to comb my hair it was frozen. 

You won't believe anything I say after that! 

DOING THE NORTH POLE. 

It was not frozen as solid as a chunk of ice exactly ; 
still, it was frozen, and I broke my comb trying to 
comb it. 

Later in the day I found it had been twenty-seven 
below zero — the coldest day I ever experienced. 

In our trips, as we would come back in our buck- 
board wagon, — the cylinders, at times, making a lively 
racket, as we trotted over the frozen country roads, — 
I would take out a little bread, only to find it frozen ; 
and it takes pretty cold weather to freeze bread, hard. 
I never saw it that way before: ice cream and bread 
separate for me, if you please. 



FRANKLIN. 231 

Up in this cold region there appeared one day a 
young fellow whom they called a " paper-mill tramp." 
He was of medium size, and a great fellow to swear. 
This rather amused me ; for, although I am pretty well 
over it now, in the first office where I worked I sus- 
tained a well-earned reputation in that line. 

Possibly to offset that, I was called Benjy; some one 
having first called me Benjamin Franklin. Thence- 
forth I was Benjy to all. What keen foresight in my 
compatriots to discern the budding genius of a Frank- 
lin! 

The paper-mill tramp was an interesting specimen 
of humanity, but the people whose house I was stay- 
ing in could scarcely endure him. 

UNDAUNTED. 

To show how tough he was, on the day he arrived 
he had walked about ten miles, and ridden about the 
same, yet, I am sure, he had no overcoat. At a time, 
too, when the weather was somewhere about ten de- 
grees below zero. I took a fancy to him at once, and 
he told me many interesting facts connected with his 
life. 

One story was about the way he got the best of the 
" Italys," as he called the Italians. 

He had been born and reared in the down-town dis- 
tricts of New York. 



232 A BORN NEW YORKER. 

You know, it used to be very common to see an 
Italian carrying a great bag of rags on his back. Well, 
a wicked street arab, such as my informant had been, 
would walk along, and, when conditions were right, 
he would take hold of one corner of this immense bag, 
and swing it round, so that the poor Italian would go 
sprawling upon the sidewalk. One can imagine such 
a boy's delight, as he, with numerous companions, 
scooted off to a safe distance and laughed as the Ital- 
ian vented his rage upon them. 

AN ARTIST. 

He was a typical bad boy in school. Once, when 
the snowballing was good, a companion suggested — as 
he came into school — that the bad boy throw his snow- 
ball at a boy working on the black-board. For the 
good boys — those who pluckily stick to their studies, 
— he — and such as he — had the greatest contempt. 

That snowball went where it was sent: he was of 
the kind who had plenty of time to learn to throw a 
ball straight. 

The chalk went out of that boy's hand, and my 
friend went out of that school ! Indeed, he went out of 
several schools. 

Possibly, it was on this occasion that the teacher 
either punished or attempted to punish him. As was 
natural, he " fired " a slate at her, and she started for 
him! 



MAHOMET. 233 

But he had not played his " trump card," if you will 
permit the expression, — in talking of a bad boy. He 
fell in front of her, and she over him ; then I suppose 
he charged for the door as fast as he could, with her 
after him ! Those are about all that I remember of his 
experiences. 

If any boy desires to emulate them, just let me add, 
that that man's chances for a comfortable life were cer- 
tainly of the slimmest. It takes sturdier stuff to be a 
good boy, and the man will prove it. 

But, as my brothers would say, when two of a 
feather flock together, they, of course, get along very 
well ! and I really succeeded in getting him to promise 
not to drink. 

Now, I don't think a drink once in a lifetime is the 
worst thing in the world ; but, as Mahomet says of wine 
and gaming : " In both there is great sin and also 
some things of use unto men; but their sinfulness is 
greater than their use." 

But let me go on : he couldn't leave off tobacco. 

RECOLLECTIONS OF HOME. 

His very earliest memory was of going to old Mrs. 
So-and-so's shop, and reaching up to the counter for a 
penny's worth o' tobacco ; but he said there might be a 
barrel of whiskey in the room and he might not touch 
a drop; that he took it mainly from friendship or 
good-fellowship. 



234 ALL'S IN THE START. 

He wrote to me some time after I left that locality. 
I have always regretted that I delayed answering him, 
till I never answered at all. 

But his grit aroused my admiration. He had come 
to that town, and been marching for seven hundred 
miles, in search of work — so he said. He got it ! and 
put in three days' labor into two days' — as a starter. 
I felt he would make a solid man in a community if 
he could only once be started on the right lines. 

As I said, it was cold weather, and the landlady was 
good-hearted and motherly. One evening she was 
warming a brick on the stove. I suppose she had made 
motions that led him to think it was for him. He 
asked her, and she said it was. 

NO CODDLING. 

" Oh no! " he said, " I'm no canary bird! " Why, 
he had not, he said, worn underclothing during all 
that cold weather. 

How quickly the candle of life would be burned out 
if you were to subject our hot-house people to such 
rigorous treatment. 

I wish, however, to relate one more of my collecting 
experiences. This time it was in one of the pleasantest 
and most attractive little towns on the Hudson. And 
not so very little, either ; say, a good five-thousand in- 
habitants. The man was a carpenter, and very pleas- 



NO QUARTER. 235 

ing, indeed. I called on him nearly a dozen times to 
collect a small sum. 

He was one of many customers, most of whom paid 
promptly ; in fact, he was a rare exception to the gen- 
eral rule. He lived in comfortable style, and one 
would have thought he would pay without any trouble. 

At last I determined to follow him with no let-up 
till I obtained my money. So I called, and met him 
outside of his shop. He was going somewhere, he 
said, and would have a check for me when he re- 
turned, in an hour or so. 

" ' 'tis dinner time,' quoth i ; 
* my gold ! ' quoth he." 

I either waited or was on hand when he returned; 
but no check. Then he said he was going into the 
house and he would have a check for me when he came 
out. 

This time I was to meet him in an hour, or maybe 
it was a few minutes — I am not sure which — at a cer- 
tain street. 

I went there and waited — waited a long time. 

At last he appeared; but no check. I said to myself 
that I would now stick to him till I secured that money. 
I expect he felt his time had come, so far as that 
money was concerned, and he had better give up. 

We walked along for a block or so, then, turning 



236 " WE HAVE MET THE ENEMY." 



into a drug store of an old acquaintance, he borrowed 
his check-book and wrote a check for the amount. 

I was acquainted with the druggist, and, having 
told him about it, he said I was lucky: he had owed 
him five dollars for a year or two, and he never ex- 
pected to get it. 

There was an old grocer in the place, — a wise old 
man, — and I told him about it. Well, it raised me in 
his estimation. He knew everybody, and he knew this 
man ; and the fact that I could collect my bill from him 
was a wonderful testimony to my ability as a collector. 
But, you see, if time is worth much, I paid dearly 
for it. 

However, as I give the reader the benefit of the in- 
cident, it will be seed to a golden harvest. To me, 
indeed, time was not worth as much as to a Vanderbilt, 
though modestly estimated at a thousand-fold more 
benefit to mankind ! 

" MISS MISS MISSMISS, 

NO NOT MISS MISSMISS." 

I once just missed a miss — not the young-lady sort, 
although there have been several of those misses. This 
miss was a train, and so close a miss that I think it 
worth relating. 

I was to illustrate a lecture some fifty miles from 
New Haven, in a town on the Air Line that runs from 



A SLOW SCARE. 237 

that city. I had been waiting for some time, having 
gone by an early train to New Haven to look after a 
screen I had sent on ahead : I thought I would inquire 
about it, and probably also take a little run round 
the city. 

I could learn nothing about the screen, which was a 
large one and of vital necessity in the illustrating 
business. 

At about the time the train pulled out on the Air 
Line, I went outside and waited to see a Through-train 
unloading its express packages and trunks, thinking 
my package might be transferred to the Air Line. I 
didn't see it. Finally I saw the Air-Line train moving 
out. I thought it was going out a little way and would 
then back up on the track of the Through Boston- 
train. I was in no worry. 

Just then I saw a woman with a little girl running 
down the platform and beckoning to the brakeman or 
conductor on the last car to stop the train. 

THE MISS CAUGHT. 

That began to look alarming ; and when the car was 
stopped for the woman I ran ahead and got on also. 
That was as near a miss as one often comes without 
missing, wasn't it? 

And if it had not been for that lady, there would have 
been an audience without any pictures, and, I suppose, 



238 BOUND FOR THE GOAL. 

without a lecture. But my screen did not arrive, so I 
bought sheeting a yard wide, then cut it into eighteen- 
foot strips, and tacked the strips to a narrow piece of 
board about eighteen feet long. 

Then I hoisted it between two poles that I had 
stayed in my usual way, with twine attached to three 
sides and to screw-eyes in the floor. 

But when that screen got up, those yard-wide strips 
of muslin hung in every possible way! The minister 
came in, and he was utterly discouraged. 

TRIO FOR SUCCESS — WORK, WORK, WORK. 

But I thought we'd come through somehow — which 
is my custom, instead of making the strictest calcu- 
lations beforehand ; rather, going right ahead, and 
feeling sure we could accomplish, in some way or 
other, what we had undertaken. 

Same as with this book. If I were to stop to ask 
who will publish it, then think of the five hundred ob- 
stacles in the way of its ever getting before the public, 
why, I should be so discouraged I would have given it 
up long before I had begun. 

That screen was a picture! 

I began at once to pin it at the bottom. Then some 
ladies came in, and we all set-to and pinned it and 
pinned it, till it was not in such very bad shape, after 
all. Just shows, you see, that if we would only make 



RETURN OF THE VICTOR. 239 

the little calculation at first, it might save a great 
deal of trouble ! Thus, for instance, it might save 
writing a book that one can never get published ! 

All I needed to do would have been to lower that 
screen a little, then take a narrow tuck in the top, — 
that is, pull one corner of each breadth up a little, — 
and there you are, straight as a string! 

However, all went well, and the minister was well 
pleased; for he was returning to his first charge, to 
show his people what he could do as a lecturer while 
still pastor of one of the largest churches in the 
city. 

And if he ever gets hold of this line, I want him to 
know that he was the " whitest " man I ever worked 
for, and that isn't to say that I have not done work 
for very fine men. 

PASTE CHRISTIANS. 

I think I may tell you that he was a Methodist min- 
ister ; especially as I have illustrated for several Meth- 
odist ministers. He once said to me that he had met 
some pretty small men in the world, but that he 
thought some of the Methodist ministers were the 
smallest of any! 

Well, he was so generous that he would give his ser- 
vices for nothing, and even came short on expenses, 
but never short on paying me and treating me as gen- 
erously as possible. 



240 EQUALITY. 

But when I say that, I must also tell you that an- 
other man whom I did this sort of work for, had me 
travel just as comfortably as he did himself. When 
w T e stayed at a hotel, which was always first-class, he 
would have me occupy a room next to himself ; and 
when we came down from Troy twice, didn't he have 
me return each time with him in the sleeping-car. 

A BETTER JOB THAN MINE. 

That was my first experience in a Pullman ; and I 
offered the porter five cents for having brushed my 
shoes. I am sure I never asked him to brush them, 
and he needn't have done it. He said he would keep 
the five cents as a souvenir ! I expect he would have 
thought I was treating him as was his due if I had 
handed him a quarter. But that way of speaking about 
my nickel didn't make me give him any more. The 
fun I missed! If I had then pompously handed him 
out a quarter, he would have thought I was one of 
the owners of the road! 

This minister was a large man, about six-foot two, 
and it was amusing to see a lot of little fellows up 
there try to get him to take less for his lectures than 
he had agreed to take. 

He let them know, while they w T ere bobbing round 
him, and trying to make him hear, for he was some- 
what deaf, that they should have advertised better, 
then they would have made more. , 



INTO THE BOWELS OF THE EARTH. 241 

However, I think he let them off a little; he was 
getting over a hundred dollars a lecture. 

Later I went with him to Wilkesbarre, Penn. That 
was a fine trip ! While there. I went into the Empire 
coal mine. Down we went, five hundred feet into the 
crust of the earth ; and way down there we saw stalls 
for mules, plenty of room for them, so it seemed, in 
those black halls, running for miles. 

But a barn in a coal mine was a little out of my an- 
ticipation. Still, the roof was not shingled. Like 
barns oftentimes, there were plenty of rats around. 

" AND IN THAT COUNTRY COALS ARE DEAR." 

I believe it was said of one of the mules in this 
mine, that having been down there for thirty years, it 
was taken out to enjoy its last few years in well- 
earned comfort. 

Such a quantity of coal that they don't take out at 
all! — leave in about a third of it to support the roof. 

I said to the man who showed us round that I sup- 
posed it must make a great hole in the earth, taking 
out, as he said, sometimes as high as a thousand car- 
loads a day or two thousand tons. If I have made a 
mistake of a thousand tons or so, I am sure the reader 
will excuse me. That's nothing! think of the mistake 
we are all making as commanders of the coal barons, in 
giving all of God's bounteous coal-fields to them! 
16 



242 FROM GOD FREE, FROM BARONS DEAR. 

To make sure, we will say they took out an immense 
pile every day, but were not, when I visited the mine, 
taking out more than maybe five hundred tons a day. 

He said you would hardly know where the coal came 
from it made so little impression. That showed the 
size of the mine, one of the largest in the United 
States. 

With this lecturer, I had the most pleasing anticipa- 
tion in the way of traveling I ever had in my life ; and 
that was, that I go out with him to California; and I 
would have gone if he could have arranged for two 
more lectures, but the trip fell through. 

However, I extracted all the fun possible out of the 
anticipation, and dropped the regret instanter! 



HIS RECORD UNCHALLENGED. 243 



XI 



AND now we have heard all your arguments 
about the workingman — maybe not quite 
all! 
" We see you think he knows more than anybody 
else, is shrewder, more intelligent ; or, as Mark Twain 
puts it : ' He can jump higher, hit harder, run faster, 
and hold more tanglefoot whiskey without spilling it 
than any man in seventeen counties ! ' 

" We understand all that ! And how he has written 
all the Shakespeares in the world, has all the religion 
that is of any use, built everything, painted everything, 
been everything. 

A BOULDER. 

" But here is our little point against your whole 
scheme, which downs you at one thrust, and leaves 
you utterly demolished. 

" And that point is this : 

" If the workingman be all that you claim, why, in 
the name of all that is true, doesn't he possess the mil- 



244 THINK A BIT. 

lions of the world? Why are not the workingmen 
the kings of the earth? Why doesn't the workingman 
have your big positions? W T hy doesn't he have your 
servants and livery, and all that is fine? Why doesn't 
he own the earth if he is so intelligent, and has such 
ability, power, and prowess ? What's his idea in giv- 
ing all this away? Where's his common sense gone 
to?" 

Ahem : that last is a question ! Yes, a very good 
question. It is a question that might well make one 
think twice, then think that twice over again before he 
answered. 

But, there isn't much that the poor man can't 
tackle : from tough beef-steak to tough problems ; and, 
as the poet said when he tried " to secure the bival- 
vular hermit, a neat little swallow I term it." 

OURS TO SOLVE. 

Not of yesterday, but of to-day, is our problem ; not 
the common sense and intelligence that should have 
been exercised, but the common sense and intelligence 
that is now and is to be exercised. As well blame our 
forefathers for not riding in trolley-cars as to blame 
the workingman for giving up his rights through ina- 
bility to solve the problem of the distribution of wealth 
— it is of to-day. 

Ah, such an answer! After that, let the Sir Isaac 



WASHINGTON. 245 

Newton of his time rest content! To have the work- 
ingman take his shovel and throw it on the ground and 
say, " There, you've been talking all day, and now one 
question punctures your whole scheme ! " That would 
be too bad, but, now, let our answer stand for the ages ! 

However, as the workingman picks up his shovel 
again, I say : " It isn't I who answer this, or any other 
question ; it's you who answer it, and answer it a thou- 
sand times over. Yours to experience both the bale- 
ful influence of unjust conditions and, by vigorous 
thought and work, to remove them ; while I, with zeal- 
ous art, but picture in words what you do in deeds." 

Do you remember how it was that Washington at 
one time tried to make some acknowledgments in a 
speech, but could say nothing. 

" BY THEIR WORKS YE SHALL KNOW THEM." 

Then some one who had the " gift of gab " grace- 
fully put matters to rights by saying that, Washington 
didn't need to make a speech, his works spoke for him. 

The workingman speaks like some mighty volcano, 
that sends forth lava and smoke and fire for the whole 
world to look upon. 

Then some little mite of a man, like myself, for in- 
stance, will say, " I will show you how that volcano 
belches its smoke and fire." 

And the volcano says : " Great Scott ! Will you 
defend me from the aspersions of men ! " 



246 LI HUNG CHANG. 

" Certainly," say I; " just get out of my way for a 
moment, please, and I'll whack 'em ! " 

First, then, let us say a word as to the impossible. 
Napoleon said that impossible was the word of fools; 
but I'd like to see him grow grass upside down. 

So I w r ould like to know how a million workingmen 
could be a million kings, or a million presidents, or 
a million millionaires even. Where's the room? They 
say " There's plenty of room at the top; " but where? 
Show it to me. 

Suppose you and I get to the top, anywhere. If we 
have good stuff in us we will stick. Who else is going 
to get there while we are there? It accords better with 
the facts to say that there is no room at the top. 

THE TOP'S PRETTY FULL. 

Look at Li Hung Chang! He once got to the top. 
And when he got there, I tell you he wasn't ousted. 
Good, bad, or indifferent he stuck, fortified himself 
" all round about." 

I grant that he seems to have been a pretty good 
man for the place ; but where was your fine " room " 
at the top for every one to have a chance at ? 

The truth is, there is plenty of room at the bottom, 
but no room at the top. And when any one gets to the 
top, he sticks, for life or death. 

The top is one, the people are millions, and the im- 



NO ROOM HERE! 247 

possible confronts them if they want to get to the top. 
So it is that, if a very ordinary man once gets to the 
top, and holds on, he may keep off men of vastly 
greater ability. 

Such is the case with the majority of positions of 
all sorts the world over, held, as they are, by men of 
less ability, less force of character, less of the native 
grit of honor and honesty than the working people 
have. 

But, besides being impossible, suppose you don't 
want to get there, how then ? 

A million people can't be kings and potentates, and 
if they don't want to be, why, you can't make them, 
even with a Napoleon knocking off crowns and put- 
ting them on again as fast as he can. 

CUSTOM HIS IRON RULER. 

I well remember how strange it was to me when I 
found that it wasn't everyone that wanted to be a 
public speaker; and, strange as it may appear, there 
are those of such good sense that they would not care 
to be kings if they could. What has the king to offer 
as recompense for a man's loss of liberty? for his loss 
of a good home, of wholesome, honest living? 

Just sit down with any of them, — as I haven't done 
lots of times, — and ask them what they think of their 
job. 



248 LOOK FOR A BETTER JOB. 

Does it make them boil over with happiness all the 
time? The vast majority of them will tell you it is 
really all nonsense to say it is such a fine thing to 
be a king. " Why/' they would say, " my dear fellow, 
keep out of it ; fact is, the business of being king is 
overdone, everybody wants to be king, and it's ' no 
good.' 

" Once it paid to be king. Yes, in the good old days 
of our forefathers there was something in it ; but those 
times are past. My dear boy, take my word for it ; if 
you know when you are well-off you will never be a 
king. 

" Your democracy," continues the king, with 
warmth, " has spread over the world, — a modern 
king is more of a democrat than his page was a hun- 
dred years ago. The papers make him so : everyone 
is ' cheek-by-jowl ' with him. My boy, I'd rather be an 
independent American than any king that was ever 
born! 

can't leave it. 

" Furthermore," says the king, " you are bothered 
forever by place-hunters, politicians, — anyone who 
thinks he can make a tool of you or a fool of you, until 
you wish you were at liberty to go and hoe corn or 
dig potatoes for a living. 

" Yes," adds the king, " I'd do it, too, if, as Widow 
Bedott says, ' it wouldn't create surprise.' " 



LIVES OF THE GREAT. 249 

So I sympathize with the poor fellows and say, 

" Well, Mr. Your Gracious Majesty and High Po- 
tentate, it's exactly as I thought." 

But, further, what have you to show that the work- 
ingman needs to obtain? 

" Greatness." 

But look at your great men: Carlisle, Poe, Byron, 
Mozart ! What, under heavens, does the workingman 
want to be like them for? And poor Bobbie Burns, 
with his noble poetry and his misery. 

Great! these are the typical great ones, whom chil- 
dren are taught to look up to; and a Napoleon, con- 
ceited, overestimated and half the time wretched. 

Surely, then, with good wages, a chance to own his 
own home, married, healthy, and hearty; surely you 
can't contend for an instant that the lives of those re- 
nowned men offer the first scintilla of advantage to 
the workingman. 

BOTH SIDES. 

He must give up a great deal if he is to get down to 
their level of unhappiness. This is but the reverse 
side of the picture of the great man, not the side shown 
with a grand blare of trumpets, which causes us to 
forget to estimate his ascendency wisely in comparison 
with our neighbors. 

I am talking of the worthful side of life, not of airy 
gossamer-like fancies and nothings, which we some- 



250 BAD SHOTS. 

times indulge in. I am talking about genuine hap- 
piness, not childhood's fairy-like dream of greatness; 
and I say that the great people of the earth, with all 
their magnificence, have mostly been " sold " in this 
respect. 

Look at the example the child is shown of Stewart 
jumping up on one of his wagons at seven o'clock in 
the morning and rushing to work. 

" Heaven help the hindmost ! " if that is happiness — > 
a millionaire on the dead rush for the last penny he can 
make. 

Why, my companionable friend, these people are all 
one-sided, worked to the last end of their being on one 
line, till dash! smatter! bang! — 

And the poor mortal that you say the workingman 
should aim to be like, goes to the insane asylum, for a 
longer or a shorter time — a nice little cost for great- 
ness, indeed ! 

And is that an aim above the workingman? Who 
can point to the whole material world and say : " I 
builded you." 

LOSES AS MUCH AS HE WINS. 

Ah ! but the millionaire ! Yes, the millionaires. 
Yes, look at them ! Open their skeleton-closets and ex- 
amine. Tears, aye, tears that only the devil's unright- 
eous work can wring from the human soul in secret. 



HOT-HOUSE PLANTS. 251 

Wasted, miserable lives; meaningless pictures, with 
gold frames: idleness. 

I am a man, and so are you, but ask yourself if this 
hasn't the true ring in it for us all ; we are but human : 
Let any of us have had nothing to do for the last 
twenty years, or fifteen, or maybe ten, and plenty to do 
nothing with, wonder of wonders, if there would not 
be more that we should want undone in a day than 
there is now in a year. 

The fact is, our professional life and the upper life 
of society is a one-sided brain cultivation. Neither 
for product nor happiness does it offer much beyond 
dross as a workingman's reward for such aspiration: 
he is doing just a little, and maybe a good deal, better 
work with pick and hoe and shovel. 

What men should do, is to hoe and to think at the 
same time; then we should have none of the shilly- 
shallying mental development of society. 

EXTREMES MEET. 

Our great men, then, might show genuine greatness, 
which would result in a long, useful, and happy life, 
instead of a mushroom development on one side, as 
now. 

The workingman has both power of mind and of 
body, as well as force of character : his necessities and 
struggles develop those attributes. 



252 WHO WINS? 

You can't be virtuous and happy, and be idle : as well 
try to grow standing- on your head. 

The millionaire is paralleled by poverty. 

The workingman has no reason for getting off the 
mountain peaks of worthiness. •' Excuse me, Mr. Mil- 
lionaire," he says, " I own that I do want to get into a 
little better social condition than I am now in, but your 
poverty — oh, excuse me, again! I believe you call it 
wealth. Really, as long as I retain my common-sense 
I can't come down to that; this world is more than a 
corn-crib, and I am getting more out of it than you 
are." 

Let us approach another subject ; and with skill and 
care: 

" For he's going to marry Yum Yum — on this sub- 
ject I pray you be dumb ! " 

Little matters like this must necessarily escape a 
great man's attention : the thought of a " nation 
builder " reverberates only from nation to nation ! 

WORTH WAITING FOR. 

You must, therefore, excuse me for not telling you 
of my marriage to the heiress of a few hundred mil- 
lions. 

You have seen the picture of the Princess Louise of 
Prussia, so beautifully, so womanly dressed, stepping 
down the stairway? — that's her, that's whom T'm talk- 



A YEAR'S WAGES FOR A DINNER-SET. 253 

ing about ! And the mighty problem that now fills my 
mind, is how to spend the money! 

Well, first let's give the one-tax a million, or ten 
millions, which shall it be? We will have that off 
our mind ! I hate little worrisome things like this ! 

President of the United States ? — not much ! 

Why, didn't you hear that one of our President's 
wives — I mean the wife of one of our Presidents — 
wouldn't be admitted to the best society because she 
wasn't able to return the fine dinners ? And that might 
easily be so. 

Look at his twopenny fifty thousand a year. Why, 
some lawyer of proper standing gave his advice free 
to a great railroad corporation, — I think it was the 
New York Central, — and what did they do but turn 
round and present him with a fifty-thousand-dollar 
dinner-set. A great show your fifty-thousand-a-year 
man would make with a fifty-thousand dinner-set! 

Charity ; yes, we'll put out a million or so that way ; 
it looks good, makes you feel good, and won't do much 
harm, anyway. 

COOPER UNION. 

And here's another good place to put a million or so : 
We'll give it to the Peter-Cooper people, and let them 
start another institution like the one named after the 
philanthropist: it will save us so much bother if they 
take charge of the money. 



254 PENSION AN ARMY. 

We are too generous ; it's really absurd ! — we have 
forgotten ourselves ! 

We must have our million-dollar residence in the 
city, and a country home that costs several millions in 
the Catskills or the Adirondacks. As we take our 
private palace-car, with double-flexible rubber springs, 
telephone, manicure, and so on, it won't make much 
difference about a few hundred dollars. Also our 
million-dollar yacht for the high seas ; and, to be sure, 
our castle or two in Europe. 

You see, we'd get some good out of our money. 
Wouldn't it be elegant ! 

And all the poor people? We could let them in by 
the back door, and give them all the cold victuals they 
wanted. 

Why, one of the richest women in the land hires a 
person by the year to look after her charities. She pen- 
sions off old cripples now and then ; spent hard work 
in looking up one poor paralytic, going through tene- 
ment after tenement till she found the poor fellow 
whose pleading eyeshad fairly haunted her kindly soul. 

What's to hinder us doing the same? We'll keep a 
whole army of men and women looking after all the 
cripples and the deserving poor. 

ON EVEN TERMS. 

And we are going to look after all our poor kinsmen 
and our wife's also. Oh, excuse me! she hasn't any; 



A PLEASURE TRIP. 255 

besides, she doesn't like to be bothered too much with 
such matters. She says she married for love, of 
course, but also because I had a great name, which 
would match her wealth; but she hates to be vexing 
her mind with too many of my ideas. So I tell her we 
can put all this business out to a manager. 

Oh yes ! I forgot ! I'm all right now about publish- 
ing this book. And to make certain that it is read and 
read by everybody, my first edition is for a million 
copies — all to be given away ! And, furthermore, as a 
million dollars isn't much to a millionaire of the first- 
class, my friend, tell no one, but accept this dollar 
with my compliments, for 'tis a serious task I give 
you. There; that's off my mind! 

To-morrow I drive out with my twenty prancing 
iron-grays down Broadway to start on my yacht for 
my European tour. I want to see Mr. King and Mrs. 
Queen and all their dear royal highnesses, who claim 
me as their own. 

EXCHANGED COURTESIES. 

Having enjoyed for long the privileges of royal 
society, I find that it is whispered that a title will be 
given me if I will come over there and live. That set 
me a-thinking. I said to myself, " Maybe, maybe, 
maybe, I'd better put my millions in business, as other 
men do." It seems as if it was a mighty good thing 



256 DESTITUTION THE ROOT OF REFORM. 

that charity comes hard; it makes a pauper out of a 
man to get something he doesn't earn. 

And don't you think I place the truth in a nutshell, 
as I said before: the poor man not only pays for his 
own charity, but supports those who give it ? 

And even the one-tax mustn't rind me too generous. 
Why? Because, my friends, money never yet bought 
the real heart of a man. 

When one poor man tells another about a new and 
grand idea, they both become genuine reformers, and 
everybody knows they tell what they believe to be true. 

Don't you feel that the man who sacrifices his time, 
sometimes even " losing his job," for his ideas, don't 
you feel that that man's story went right to your heart? 

Ah ! never in God's beautiful world did millions of 
money buy any reform; it takes millions of drops of 
the heart's blood to do that — only paid for in Heaven 
itself. 

But, isn't money good in reforms? Oh, yes; the 
money that's hard to get. 

MANY BE CALLED, BUT FEW CHOSEN. 

The right man, true and tried, does his work for 
love, for honor, for justice; one such is worth a thou- 
sand mercenaries. 

Do you think that the Christian churches have the 
kind of workers they had a century ago? when men 
worked at preaching as patriots fight in war? 



A DEMOCRATIC SALARY. 257 

As to the financial reform of our time : Take, for 
instance, my own reluctant acceptance of the Presi- 
dency for a " mere song," — three thousand a year. To 
be sure, one gets his house-rent free ! but what an 
immense barn-of-a-place to live in! However, as to 
the aforesaid sum, we may figure the possibility of its 
being earned in this wise; but, first, we must allow a 
good comfortable home in city or country. If you are 
a carpenter, you know what experts can do, and you 
know that no man, however perfect, can keep up a 
work that equals three times what an average man 
performs. 

That's true everywhere, in all trades, and, as likely 
as not, in all professions. 

" Now," I say to myself, " allow three dollars a day 
for average work, then maybe someone could earn 
ten. There's about your three thousand a year ! " 

Now, then, further, I doubt — I don't say I know, 
for I don't — I doubt if the professional man earns a 
cent more than the man with a trade. 

That's all there is to the problem. And I wouldn't 
be surprised if I were squarely inside the fence of 
truth, and that no man in this world ever earned more 
than his three thousand a year. 

A SCHOOL OF SENSE. 

Laugh, if you're a mind to, at such reasoning and 
such a sum; but when the centuries have rolled over 
IT 



258 GRAND WAGES FOR ALL. 



our ignorance of to-day, it's more than likely to be 
said, " Why, that fellow struck it pretty straight, after 
all; and although every fool said he was a fool, they 
might have all gone to school to him and learned 
sense ! " 

And, as I said before, that is a sum that would give 
any man ample means for happiness in this world. 
Don't you believe it? You, you, who are getting five 
thousand? Let me also ask the millions who are not 
getting one thousand, or the millions on millions who 
would like to see five hundred a year, in wages. Let 
mc ask them if three thousand wouldn't be ample for 
this world's needs and luxuries thrown in? 

what's the wages of ambition. 

What eternal bosh to talk about needing greater 
salaries than this outside-limit — three thousand dol- 
lars — for the very best possible work men are capa- 
ble of. 

" Three thousand ducats ; 'tis a good round sum." 
" Right you are ! And so is three thousand dollars." 
It might be twenty-nine hundred ; it might be twenty- 
five hundred. It's the salary Washington got as Presi- 
dent — a million takers for the job at that price! 

Call our limit three thousand, and I am yours for 
the next half-century; but when I receive my yearly 
stipend of three thousand, I shall appreciate how beg- 



AN HONEST WORLD. 259 

garly the sum is for my valued services, and I shall 
proudly demand more! 

Come, my top-lofties ! you who are getting more 
than three thousand, prove to the noble army of vet- 
erans who have had five hundred, that, in the name of 
God and the king, you are earning what you are 
taking ! 

" What impertinence to speak of such men in such 
a way ! " And what heathenish barbarism it represents 
that such men should not be able to prove their case ! 
Are we crazy, with a fascination for chances of more ? 
Have we lost all sense of duty, that men will not be 
true to principle unless spurred on by seeing more than 
they earn dangling before their eyes ? 

" Out on it ! " 

We are poisoned by our own self-sufficiency, by 
thinking that we earn and need what we neither earn 
nor need; while the so-called "practical man," strug- 
gles on in a hazy dreamland, pitiably grasping for 
more than he earns, — a stumblingblock to his own 
happiness. 

STRIKES NO LONGER NEEDED. 

A thousand a year is grand wages ; and if all honest 
workers could get that it would so distribute the wealth 
of the world that the millionaire and the box-room 
tenement would fade away before the dawn of home- 



260 WEALTH DISTRIBUTED. 

comforts and wholesome satisfaction and even luxu- 
ries for all — all honest workers, I said. 

Let the roll-call be sounded for the million! 

Let eternities yield up their distressed ones ; 

Let armies upon armies pass in endless review ; 

Let the heart-pangs of untold myriads of people be 
read, — 

And then let silence reign ; for, worlds upon worlds 
of people, with uncovered head, as in the sacred pres- 
ence of an angelic host, declare the wrong — dark 
as the abyss of hell itself — of their receiving the little 
that meant torture and suffering, while the little more 
would have given happiness, and have melted away 
the vast accumulations that have made sepultures of 
pride and misery. 



BUNKER HILL. 261 



XII 



SOMETIMES we have to go into the bowels of 
the earth, sometimes to the mountain- 
peaks. 
Let us go to the top of Bunker Hill Monument, if 
we won't make Washington Monument jealous ; and 
looking out upon houses and streets and harbor, see 
what we spy ; and there it is. 

The unseen is greater than the seen. 
We don't see the multitude at work after the work 
is done, we see the results. 

BELOW THE HORIZON. 

The power came before the houses and streets and 
railroads — they are here, monuments to the unseen, 
monuments to the labor that we do not see. 

Well, what of that? Think you are telling some- 
thing new? 

Not at all. 

Meandering round the Mammoth Cave of my mind, 
I happened to stop at this side-gulley, lake, cavern, 



262 FORESHADOWING A NEW DEMOCRACY. 

or patch ; and there we are ! Let that be our text for 
a short time — the unseen. 

A whisper is unseen, isn't it? Somebody whispers 
to me, " Acknowledging the vast power and ultimate 
benefit your principle or reform must be to the work- 
ingman, why should you proclaim his unseen power ? " 

That's a loud whisper, it reminds us that " his sigh 
was a hullabaloo, and his whisper a horrible yell, yes, a 
horrible, horrible yell ! " 

We think we see each other. Do we ? 

All we see is the outside, and the real human being 
is inside of that outside surface. 

Isn't that exactly the truth ? 

Do you know me to-day while I am here writing? 
No ; nor care for me, either. Will you know me when 
you are reading these lines? 

Yes; somewhat; and care for me somewhat, 
whether it's to think I am a fool or a wise man, or 
neither one nor t'other. 

SUBMARINE CABLE. 

But how will you know me? 

Not by seeing me, nor shaking hands with me, nor 
hearing my voice — it's the unseen in me that you will 
know me by ; and that's the most there is to any of 
us. That's right, too, isn't it? 

I like to ask you, because, while possibly I bring 



CESAR. 263 

the wood to your door, you can chop it exactly as well 
as I can. 

Let us call, by telephone, way down through the un- 
seen facts of history, and the unseen activities of a 
mighty nation ; and in a magnificent marble palace, 
well-equipped with " modern improvements," is the 
office of Mr. Julius Caesar, the Great. He is at the 
'phone ! 

" Mr. Caesar, if you please, a moment of your time ! 
What was one of the prime secrets of your success? 
— that is, you understand, of course, outside the thou- 
sand and one circumstances that helped to make you ; 
and also outside the fact that the people gave you your 
power, and that you followed them. 

" You understand all this, Mr. Caesar, and I shall be 
much obliged for your reply by 'phone." 

" Well," says Caesar, putting his thumbs in the 
armholes of his waistcoat, " that's a poser, so to 
speak ! 

" But I should say that one of the greatest factors of 
my success was a never-flinching belief in myself." 

" Thanks, Mr. Caesar." 

There! you see, it's just as I said: it's the unseen 
power. 

If you call up Alexander the Great you will find 
you'll get the same answer ; and Joan of Arc answers 
up sprightly, too. In fact, she is the best illustra- 



264 JOAN OF ARC. 

tion of all ; for she was a poor, simple, country girl, 
unknown to fame. 

No matter how she came to believe in herself, she 
got the belief, and led the armies to victory. 

Do you think that that inborn belief is egotism, 
self-assumption, or assurance? Not a bit of it; they 
are used only to cover weaknesses. 

But real power doesn't display itself by saying, 
" Look at me, see how big I am ! " 

Talk about modesty! Why, bless your heart, even 
the great writer of this book is overwhelmed by it! 

Look at Grant. There was your really great gen- 
eral ; and his great opponent showed his true great- 
ness by never allowing any disparaging words of Grant 
in his presence. 

THE BOASTER NEEDS BOLSTERING. 

Did Grant boast either before or after his work? 
Never : as modest a man as you would meet in a day's 
march. 

But there was in him the never-dying sternness of an 
unflinching belief in himself. 

Why, even as a young fellow at college — and rather 
dull, too — he sees a general in his fine trappings, and 
thinks, " Maybe I'll be in his shoes some day " — so he 
tells us, somewhere. 

That wasn't much, but it showed the tendency of 
his mind and a belief in himself that it might be pos- 



A RULER OF MEN AND NATIONS. 265 

sible ; and every movement during his war-career 
found him as little doubtful of his ability to win as that 
he would take another breath. 

Of course, we may say, Suppose he hadn't won? 
Or, There are thousands who have such beliefs and 
don't win — don't you doubt that a little? 

When we have a full belief in ourselves in any di- 
rection, isn't it when we have a good foundation for 
the belief? 

At any rate, the belief is unseen ; who ever saw a 
belief? And whether it is the greatest thing in the 
world for success, it is very great. 

NEVER CORNERED. 

You see, you can't catch me in an argument ! For, 
" tho' I do most horribly " exaggerate, yet will I re- 
tract ! 

But there are one or two other shots left in the 
locker. After they are discharged, maybe we will 
begin to see the use of this argument — noting, by the 
way, that argument prevents that mental torpor that 
is ever the menace to liberty; it is the very breath of 
freedom itself, the civilizer of the world. 

There are not many people in the world — especially 
in the United States — we are thankful to say — who 
starve to death ; that is, I mean a direct, continuous, 
persistent starvation. Thousands, no doubt, do die 



266 BEST NATIONS LIVE BEST. 

because of insufficient food and clothing and care and 
shelter. 

We often hear of starvation wages. But look at the 
Chinamen — in China they will live on a few handfuls 
of rice a day, and, I suppose, get as strong as any- 
body on it, though, as we see their pictures and judge 
of them generally, they seem a thin-looking race. Still, 
we ourselves are not a very fat people: they don't 
picture Brother Jonathan as if he lived too high. 

But starvation wages in these United States doesn't 
mean down to the rice-limit, nor to Tanner and his 
forty days on water. 

What starvation wages mean is, what men are will- 
ing to live on, or what they think would be starvation 
wages ; and that is very different. 

UNSUBDUED. 

Men will die before they will live on starvation 
wages ; that's the point. 

In the United States the workingman is used to a 
certain way of living ; it becomes a habit with him. To 
be sure, he will stand considerable pressure, still, he 
stoutly holds to the belief that he must live about so and 
so, or it means starvation. 

And even if it doesn't quite mean starvation, it means 
near enough to it to fight for all he is worth rather 
than p-o to that limit. 



BELIEF BINDS NATIONS. 267 

Surely, you will say, this is almost the truth. 

You see at what I am aiming : the power of the un- 
seen ! the hidden belief ! Why, it's the same in almost 
every stage, from genuine starvation clear up to 
wealth. 

Take the man used to his glass of lager beer every 
day. He knows he wouldn't starve if he didn't have 
it; but he believes in about that way of living; and a 
war-cry wouldn't scare him if it would save him his 
glass of beer. 

It's all a belief. You and I could live on rice just 
as well as a Chinaman, but we won't — that's the long 
and short of it. 

Why, even a tramp won't live as it would be possi- 
ble to and yet not really starve. No; he will work 
hard at begging first, and proudly declare that he gets 
his " three squares " every day. 

MISTAKEN IDEAS. 

" If you are to be a genuine hobo you've got to work 
hard," is the advice one tramp gives to another just 
starting in ; and I expect it is true. 

Don't we hear now and then of men worth vast 
fortunes losing a large part of them and committing 
suicide while they still had a paltry hundred thousand 
or two left? They'd rather die than live on what 
seems to them a starvation basis. 



268 WORTH A MILLION MEN IN BATTLE. 

It's all in their mind; but it is none-the-less power- 
ful. It is a determination to live as an aristocrat. 
It is the worship of caste. Although they could live 
more luxuriously than any man should, they will die 
rather than not live still better. Such is the power of 
the unseen belief. 

Should we not proclaim this unseen power? Must 
not the use of this power to the advantage of the work- 
ingman prove the next progressive step of civiliza- 
tion? 

If every workingman believed in himself after the 
manner of this book, he would never allow, or, rather, 
force the few to stand over him as conquerors. This 
book is written on the threshold of what he is going to 
believe, — with the pride of an ancient Roman in being 
a Roman. When a man believes in anything so that 
he will die for it, he has but one conqueror. 

Don't we all need independence of feeling? Don't 
we all need to feel equal to any man on earth? Does 
God put a birth-mark of hod-carrier on one, and of 
king on another? 

THE EARTH OUR RECOMPENSE. 

How can we feel and act equal unless we have this 
power of belief in ourselves ? You couldn't hide such 
a belief. And half the battle for better conditions, con- 
ditions of greater equality, conditions in which the rec- 






WOULD DIE FIRST. 269 

ognized leadership of the masses shall advance our 
civic and national polity equally with the arts and 
sciences, will be won by that belief. You can laugh at 
such a statement, but it is true, nevertheless. 

Why couldn't the Indians be made into slaves? You 
know as well as I. We may call them all sorts of 
names, shoot them down without quarter; but no 
slavery for them. 

On the other hand, take the Afro-Americans. It 
was my fortune to meet and deal with a considerable 
number at one time. And here I am reminded that 
Fred Douglas said Lincoln was the only man to whom 
he could talk without being reminded of the fact that 
he was not of the white race. 

But, with respectful difference to time, the angels 
and greatness, allow me to say that I can go Lincoln 
one better. 

TREATED AS WHITE MEN. 

For I not only treated the colored people so that 
they were not reminded they were not of the white 
race, but they almost thought I was not ! Shades 
of my Mayflower ancestors! 

At one time I was in the vestibule of one of their 
best churches in Baltimore ; and the janitor, with whom 
I was acquainted, said to me, with considerable hesi- 
tation : 

" Are you, are you — ? " 



270 " WHEN ONLY MR. PIPPS HE WAS." 

I saw what was the matter, and I finished his sen- 
tence : 

Am I colored? 

" Well," he said, " you treat us so differently from 
other white people that I thought it might be." I told 
him that, so far as I could go for several generations 
back, there was no colored blood in my veins. 

I told this incident at a meeting once, and a man 
said to me: 

" Take you for a colored man ! — much more likely 
to take you for an Indian." How hard to keep to 
one's race ! 

I remember going, at one time, to a public fountain 
for a drink of water, and a negro stepped out of the 
way for me to drink first. It was an unusual act of 
consideration, typical of the very thing the working- 
man should not do. Politeness is always desirable, 
but not the " deference due to pedigree." 

It is all a matter of a superstitious reverence for a 
power of our own creating : we, the workers — not those 
whom we support — are the ones the world should bow 
to. 

A RELIC OF KING-WORSHIP. 

Perfect equality is equality, it isn't standing with 
one's hat in one's hand when " the boss " has his hat 
on. Oh, I know what I am talking about ! 

I say that the workingman is more independent than 



GLADSTONE. 271 

any other class, and I believe it. But I also believe 
this is the greatest and freest country in the world to- 
day. Still, it isn't what it ought to be. 

And the workingman's independence isn't what it 
ought to be, or is going to be. 

I know how difficult it is to be independent when 
one's bread and butter is opposed to it ; — witness most 
of the professional classes. There is also hard sense 
at times in not being independent. 

Isn't it good to cultivate this independence ? 

Cultivate it until every workingman has the look in 
his face — the true index of what we are — that shows 
that he is independent, not that he knows what it is 
to be for years under a boss; but that he knows and 
feels and carries out practically in his everyday life 
the look, the thought, and the understanding of a man 
equal to his boss, or to any man, whether born to a 
throne or to a dug-out. 

WITH A NATION BACKING. 

The man of business carries himself as if he ov/ned 
the world ; and he finds it aids him greatly to own it. 

Let us further remember, that all this is the unseen 
in men which has untold power. 

Look for a moment at such a man as Gladstone. 
Do we suppose that he could have been the choice of 
a great multitude of people as one who could best ex- 
press their ideas and wishes unless he had an uncon- 



272 KNOW THYSELF. 

quering belief and confidence in his own abilities? 
This, with his experience, made him just the kind 
of a man the people were delighted with. 

And that's the story of every conqueror ; even of 
conquering peoples : they have a superhuman strength 
because of the belief in themselves, which inspires 
them to great accomplishments in every field of mental 
or physical activity. 

Gladstone says, in effect, somewhere, that you can 
depend on the common people to be on the right side 
of great questions. That is but prophetic of the work- 
ing people's advancement ; for they are on the right 
side of the problems of the social wrongs of to-day. 

He thus grants that they have greater mental ability 
than their opponents, the aristocrats of the world. 
And we but add, they control the aristocrats of the 
world. 

UNLIMITED FORCE. 

But the unseen feeling of power requires genuine 
reality behind it ; and that is what the workingman 
has in a preeminent degree. 

We wish to call attention to the immense Krupp 
guns and solid forts behind the wooden cannon and 
the obstructingbrushwood of men's imaginations. We 
want to call attention to the workingman's inherent 
power, and to the fact that he has exercised that 
power to lift the w r orld from savagery to civilization. 






I'LL " PUT THE QUESTION MYSELF." 273 

Our word is that, He is a mighty Niagara, that 
nothing can withstand. He is a great Mississippi, 
that carries all before it. 

His power is great enough to have this world just as 
he wants it — good wages ; to live under his own vine 
and fig-tree, and have his well-earned share of all that 
is fine and worthy in this world. All obstacles may be 
to him as trees are in a hurricane, — mere pipe-stems, 
if the majestic power within himself is but once clearly 
apprehended. 

Do you suppose you could control a horse if he knew 
his strength? 

It is this proper appreciation of one's own position 
that shall come, and must come, as the workingman 
takes the reins of our Republic and says : 

" This time a democracy shall not be a lie ; for we, 
the people, the solid, honest workingman — with his 
red shirt and his hard hand and his good sense, — like 
the good brick he lays, or land he tills — he is to repre- 
sent himself." 

" To hell with reform ! " we may well say if it is to 
be forever the blasting curse of a mere change from 
one little set of politicians to another. 

REFORM OF REFORMS. 

But a reform that puts the people where they ought 
to be; a reform in which the people themselves stand 
as the rock of Gibraltar, against the little, petty chaff 

18 



274 A CONQUEROR. 

of humankind that supposes itself above them — that 
sort of a reform is the kind we will proudly live for; 
and in living, show a greater patriotism, and, let 
us hope, stand a severer test than a soldier on the 
battle field. 

I am but telling, now, of the dawning of this unseen 
democracy in men. I am seeing the unseen that each 
and all of us are beginning to see : the electricity in 
the telegraph, the power in the engine; the electricity 
that we never see, the steam that we never see ; the air 
in the hurricane that we never see. 

When a workingman comes into an audience, he 
thinks himself rough, uncouth, illiterate ; and " Lis- 
tens like a three-years' child, the mariner hath his will." 

Let the workingman see himself as a man of con- 
trolling power and capacity, and with this mental awak- 
ening is coming a control of government to his ad- 
vantage. 

" AND CHOSE HIM FIVE SMOOTH 
STONES OUT OF THE BROOK." 

Let the workingman see himself as David of old : 
majestic, calm, serene; while his enemies are giants, 
powerful only in the mind's eye ; but his unseen power 
is as the majesty of God's truth, which conquereth 
all things. 

Suppose the poor man carried himself with an in- 
born " die or be damned " feeling toward the rich, 



TOADIED. 275 

haven't the rich on that instant lost half the use of 
their wealth and position ? the rich who want deference 
in their presence, who desire others to feel the sense 
of their grandeur? 

I But if you and I and tens of thousands of others had 

an honest contempt for wealth, its effect would be 
as a tornado to clear away the rubbish of superstition 
that entices men to unnatural desires for vast accumu- 
lations. 

II read an interesting account, some time ago, of a 
man of remarkable ability who went to England and 
soon " got in " with the Prince of Wales and other 
great people. The man told all about it, and how the 
prince spoke of him to others and gave him a great 
boom. But did he ever show his true independence 
to these people? 

Of course not : it wasn't policy. He did what they 
like; he treated them with much concern, as if they 
were great; and that was all they wanted. 

But your independent man must talk to the Prince 
as if he was a prince himself; then where is your 
Princeship ? 

NEW GOSPEL. 

My friend, take my word for it, this book contains 
the gist of a new democracy, a new sentiment of 
worth, that is starting to blossom in the human breast ; 



276 A PRAIRIE FIRE. 

a new belief; an unseen power, that is to rule us and 
rule our nation. 

Aye, the spirit of independence is abroad, and the 
feeling of power that shall accomplish a fuller inde- 
pendence, the spirit that knows no master and that 
brooks no usurpation of rights — that's the spirit, 
whether we reach to its full limit or not. 

But here's a little fact, — a crystal of it all : If we 
don't believe in ourselves, and if the workingman 
doesn't believe in his being worth as much to the 
world as the rich man, then we may as well close up 
shop, sell out, and move instanter ; for, in that case, 
this country will be as old as ten Egypts before the 
workingman gets anything but drubbing. 

I am only telling you what you believe ; and if this 
work is popular, that will be the best proof of it. If 
it isn't. . . . 

But, you may rest assured it will be popular; for, 
from afar, I hear the whispered mutterings of the 
people's desire ; and a friend says : 

" I hope you will make a bull's-eye shot ! " 

" Rifleman, shoot me a fancy shot straight at the 
heart of yon prowling vidette." 

Aim! Fire! — And we wet our pen in the heart's 
blood of the people, for it is wet in our own heart's 
blood! 



DEMOSTHENES. 2.77 



XIII 



AND now for the thrilling cheers that resound 
in the orator's ears ! 

Well, hardly ; but that's not a bad line to 
begin the chapter with. As Demosthenes would say, 
" Oratory is not ' such stuff as dreams are made of/ 
but it's more such as hard knocks pound out." 

And there Mr. D. and I agree; but he was at least 
two thousand years behind the age as to the working 
people. His was the Golden Age of Oratory; we are 
entering the Golden Age of Labor. 

As I was about to remark : When I filled the shoes 
of Demosthenes they seemed a trifle roomy ; but no 
doubt his hat would have been plenty small for my 
big head. 

CLOSELY IMITATED! 

I might remark, further, that Demosthenes was a 
great man, without especially detracting from my own 
greatness. And, as he lived before me, I trust I may 
be excused for having imitated him, although the 
similarity is not so close that you would have had diffi- 



278 POWERFUL ORATORY. 

culty in telling us apart. Still, I never found it neces- 
sary to talk with pebbles in my mouth, so as to speak 
plainly ; in fact, in the open, with a truck for my plat- 
form, I used to drown the sound of passing carts or 
shouting boys with my own fascinating yell. Thus, 
at one time my voice was penetrating; till you would 
have asked, "Where is that steam calliope?" Never- 
theless, a man across the street called, " Louder ! " 
With withering scorn I sent my voice a few blocks 
farther. 

PRESIDENTS, PRESIDENTS, EVERYWHERE. 

Now, to our three trades and a profession — elocu- 
tionist — thanks ! — we add that of public speaker ; and 
as we recount many a trifling incident, let the justi- 
fication be, that they typify daily happenings in all our 
lives, from which to judge — as Presidents pro tern — 
the nation, and taking action, to bind Democracy and 
prosperity together. 

So our pen bowled over into the subject of Free 
Trade. And when a shrewd politician came to the 
little town that proudly claimed me as resident, I 
gave him a sample in private of my effort. 

He seemed pleased, and promised me a start in some 
place in the city. 

Ah ! had my name been found in the Elite Direc- 
tory, or had I had a pull with some strong politician, 
or been well-known to " the boys," my talents would 



BLOCKADED. 279 

have been monuments to my progress. As it was, 
the aforesaid shrewd politician saw in me, a week 
later, but little to commend, thinking my effort too 
literary. 

Thus it is, my friend, an average effort only suc- 
ceeds, but your man capable of wresting the laurel 
from the brow of the greatest, is ever thought by aver- 
age men the least! And so the future orator, who 
could be heard for blocks and blocks, was turned 
down; but only to turn up again at the first oppor- 
tunity. 

To start ! Aye, but the money ! Lincoln, for dress, 
borrowed a hundred when he started in the legisla- 
ture. 

oh, yes ! 

Hand in your crisp fifty-dollar bill when they need 
funds, and see if they don't start you as a public 
speaker, and treat you like a grandee ! 

But if it is you that want the fifty dollars, or five, 
or are willing even to work for nothing, they may not 
hasten to start you. 

Was I to tell them I could do what I didn't know 
I could do? 

Not I ! And then, handicapped as I was with timid- 
ity toward men personally, who would have thought 
that such a one could do anything on the platform ? 



280 COLLEGE ASSOCIATES. 

However, I gave my little speech, partly read, in a 
country meeting of Protectionists. Several expressed 
themselves as much pleased : I had helped them to see 
the other side. 

Once, in a country place, I spoke for an hour and 
a quarter. But that was a little too long, both for 
the audience and me, although in the country they are 
not satisfied with short rations in that line. 

" When I was with Grant ; " or, rather, when I went 
to college — that is, when I got the best part of college 
experience, and that is, association — society; when I 
associated with professors, lecturers, and preachers, 
— then I learned a little trick. Oh, yes ! I learned it, 
too, in many an argument. 

And it is so cute I must tell it to you. All speakers 
now attend! 

POPULARITY. 

And a few others can listen, also, for it's the very 
finest little scheme ever heard of to make an audience 
like you ; it is : don't talk too long. 

To some king of oratory, a Beecher or a Webster, 
this rule would be " inoperative," but it's all the differ- 
ence between success and failure with the smaller fry; 
for we will listen to the most miserable speaker for a 
minute or two, and be well-pleased; but let him or 
her get their " second-wind," and " it's good-by," to 






RUFUS CHOATE. 281 

our attention or care for what they are talking about. 

Rufus Choate said an hour was as long as a man 
could hold an audience ; but he, of course, might have 
held his audience ten hours — fast asleep. 

What he meant was, to keep people on the alert so 
that every word was appreciated, every point quickly 
seen, the enthusiasm kept right up to concert-pitch. 

It sounds as if he was pretty nearly correct, doesn't 
it? As for you and me, we couldn't be on the very 
last burst of an overpowering enthusiasm for an hour : 
a good deal shorter time might answer, and would 
also give somebody else a chance. 

A NEW ERA. 

" Oh ! dinna ye hear the slogan far awa ? " as along 
the path of time comes the ever-increasing sound of 
an inspiration toward better work to-day. 

As the voice of liberty is heard in the land, each 
age awakens slowly from its lethargy. 

Not you, nor you, nor you tell the gladsome tidings, 
but a vast muffled cry of the oppressed announces 
God's unyielding purpose of freedom. Glorious maj- 
esty of the new-born day, that finds liberty the peo- 
ple's intention! when the oppressor deigns even to 
smile at the darts of the oppressed ! 

And this most auspicious of days we found during 
the recent campaign — the people's day of a million 
years. 



282 A HARD PULL. 

And high up, around the throne of greatness, you 
find my name enrolled, " a warrior bold " on that day. 

Alas for " the wooing o't ! " You will look the 
great list over, and after giving up the search, you 
will find my name — as Daniel Dougherty said — as one 
of the " and others ! " 

But not so my attempts to get started! You will 
find my name well up toward the top of those who 
received the " cold hand " and the " marble heart ! " 

I haven't been in the school of necessity with three 
trades and a profession — as hereinbefore mentioned — 
for nothing. So this time we shall appeal directly to 
the highest authority. 

We did ; and we received a short line from the chief 
of chiefs, signed by himself, in which he pleasantly 
referred me to the headquarters in New York City. 

" ALL CRY AND NO WOOL." 

I sent the letter there, with my application for work 
as a speaker; but that is the last I heard from it. I 
am sorry now I didn't keep the original — the great 
man's note. 

A week or so later found me at headquarters. I 
saw there a pleasant-looking man of literary taste and 
business capacity, — too nice a man for such work, — it 
would have done better for you, or you and me. 

But it was enough to scare the life out of one to go 






UNARMORED. 283 

there and pass halls and corridors full of men who 
looked as if they had political work down to its final 
atom. And where would I be ? This pleasant gentle- 
man wanted an outline of my speech. 

Well, now ! I was anxious enough as it was ; but to 
let him know what I would say when pitching in at a 
two-four-and-a-quarter rate before an audience — that 
was too bad! 

He had me at a disadvantage! I quickly made it 
apparent, however, that I loved not the rich less but 
the workingman more, and that I should incorporate 
that tendency of thought with every breath I uttered. 
As he was of the wealthy class, we reached political 
conclusions by different routes; he didn't like mine. 

A SKILFUL MANOEUVRE. 

He suggested my writing a synopsis of my speech, 
and sending it to him. Ah, ha! There he had me! 
A speech in cold print is turkey without sauce ! 

I wrote the synopsis. Did he read it? Probably it 
got no nearer to him than his waste basket ! Such 
crowds ! he had no time to read essays. 

However, he remembered me when I called again, 
and gently shelved me off on someone else. And all 
for the lack of the rich man's pocket-book! With 
that, how I could have strutted round ! Alas, I could 
not have written this book, than which a thousand 
millionaires' millions would not compensate me. 



284 A SKIRMISH. 

This, my first brilliant experience as a politician, 
lasted almost two months, I meeting many genial gen- 
tlemen while enjoying the pleasures of anticipation. 

Meanwhile I determined to be no longer caught 
napping, and the pertinent question as to an outline 
of my speech only added to my energetic preparation. 
I also became acquainted with a clever Wall Street 
man, whose generous enthusiasm helped to push me on. 

" Give 'em hell ! " this man said to me as I got up 
on a platform to address a crowd in the street, while 
darkies for the opposition were singing and holding 
high conclave in a wagon near, to drown us out. 

But we waited, on the advice of the " Colonel," — 
another acquaintance, — till the darkies were a little 
tired, then we pitched in ; yes, and our voice was tested 
to its utmost. 

charge ! 

But do you know that, during such excitement, 
straining one's voice and talking as if you meant to die 
right then and there, it's one thing to say " give 'em 
hell ! " and it's another to do it ! 

You must put the enemy to rout by sharp and well- 
aimed thrusts, and follow up your advantage with that 
greatest of all weapons, — truth. 

Somewhere between five and seven minutes proved 
my limit for my first out-door attempt. 



IT'S WORK. 285 

By that time I was not only hoarse, but it seemed as 
if there wasn't one idea and hardly a word left in my 
head, so it was a good time to stop. 

And should I be blamed for seeking compensation 
as a public speaker? As well blame a man for asking 
pay for plowing or blacksmithing. Let us declare it 
as a truth : 'tis in nature's plan, man can do nothing 
well without hard work. 

'Tis just as true: in nature's plan, man can do noth- 
ing well without play. Too hard work ! Too long 
hours ! All hail the dawning day ! — Transformed the 
weary toiler ; opportunity is his : invention doth yield 
both comfort and recreation. 

TIT FOR TAT. 

As to blame aforesaid, — if blame there be, — let me 
take my share, and pass it on to the audience. Shall 
they receive good service and pay nothing for it? 

I learned, in time, there was no pay for me, and no 
start from headquarters. The fact is, they had other 
fish to fry, and to fry the fat from the other fish left 
them no time for the small fry ! 

Such the ways of politics ! But, methinks, — I'll 
whisper low, — the politician and man of business are 
sentimental artists, plying their craft for the sake of 
gain. How gentle, how persuasive, how indulgent ! 
But, when the struggle for dollars waxeth hot, when 



286 GOLDEN RULE. 

the battle is fairly on, there is no quarter, and in the 
grip of the strongest the dollars are held. Then " to 
the front all " stands your Standard Oil, and A. T. 
Stewart, or " Old Hutch/' 

" Business principles " indeed ! — built on what the 
workingman earns but doesn't receive! Oh, pitiable 
monstrosity of mind, that, in such a condition, sees 
only justice! 

However, — as truth will out, — let us be thankful 
that those who receive more than they earn, often 
maintain a sterling integrity of character. 

Yes, the rich, guided and instructed by their master, 
the workingman, must retain some of their master's 
principles ; and, while accepting his dictation to take 
his hard-earned dollars, are not nearly so bad as the 
taking of those dollars might seem to warrant us in 
supposing. 

But, Generosity, thy name is not business, and the 
taking of dollars that bring misery to countless thou- 
sands of humankind, must not be set down in the same 
calendar with human virtues. 

" THE COMBAT DEEPENS." 

But I must put down one more point, spike one more 
gun, and right here : You and I want high wages ; 
whereas, doesn't the capitalist and business man want 
our work for low wages? Then, can the capitalist 



HEAVENLY CHANCES. 287 

and you and I ever be in perfect harmony with each 
other ? 

Not while the world standeth ; not till capital shall 
be so distributed that there will be no capitalist, and 
the workingman shall have every cent that he earns. 

What a two-edged sword is truth ! For, by the 
" same token," you can't blame the rich for giving 
small wages, any more than the poor for trying to get 
larger wages. The responsibility rests with you and 
me, workingmen and poor men ; we cause control and 
produce. 

Whether it be a Vanderbilt, a Rockefeller, a Pull- 
man, or a Mark Hanna, all are but puppets in our 
hands. We tie them hand and foot, body and soul; 
they are of our making; and it rests with us to untie 
the bands of hell that damn men's souls on earth, 
whatever may be their heavenly deserts! Strong 
language, my friend, but true. 

But we're going largely to get rid of such condi- 
tions, and that's the reason I was doing my best, like 
many thousands of others, to put in my work for the 
workingman. 

IN POLITICS AT LAST. 

Thank the Lord I did my little, after all; for I fi- 
nally. . . Well, to tell you the truth, a political organ- 
ization gave me my first solid encouragement; no 
money, of course, not a cent, not even car-fare. But, 



288 ARE YOU READY? 

for that start, I must say a good word for that or- 
ganization; and that good word is: 

It was a worker — that's a coat that covers a mul- 
titude of sins ! — a good coat, indeed, and a hard one 
to beat. 

I believe if that organization had had but ten dol- 
lars, it would have spent it sensibly : Your truck was 
there, your chairman was there, your circulars had 
been distributed, your audience was there — all was on 
time; and, for the speaker, shelter provided in case 
of rain! 

This meant money, but it also meant hard work. 
All their other principles may go to smash, but I 
would almost have them win just for that. 

Two, three, or five-minute out-door speeches seemed 
to be about what I put in. And the other speakers 
on the truck were a number of times quite generous 
in their remarks to me when I had finished. 

But I started also outside of this political organiza- 
tion, and spoke in two or three small halls ; in one hall 
I got off a full twenty-minute speech. 

WITH A FLOURISH. 

After I had finished, the chairman said he hadn't 
heard a good, rousing cheer in that hall yet, and he 
wanted the audience to give three cheers. And as I 
was through, standing with the audience, I cheered 
as heartily as any one. 



REWARD. 289 

To my surprise, he said that that cheering was out 
of compliment to the speaker they had just heard, as 
well as to one who had spoken before me ; so I had been 
helping the cheers on for myself. As I had been the 
last speaker, I guess I must have been the one who 
had stirred the audience to some enthusiasm. 

At another hall, the speaker had been somewhat 
long of wind, so I cut myself down very short: there 
were others with honorable to their names who were 
yet to speak, and of course there is common sense in 
paying some deference to title, especially while trying 
to get above it ! 

So I sailed in for all I was worth, with all steam 
up, " and a nigger roosting on the safety-valve ! " 
f You're a dandy ! " some young fellow shouted. 

SHORT SPEECH COUNTS. 

After I finished, the chairman kindly let me out be- 
fore the rest were through, it being a long distance 
to my home; he also spoke feelingly of the fact that 
he was sorry I cut myself short at all — what did I say 
about a short speech ! 

It is curious, though, that in the campaign no less 
than three men spoke of my giving the people " hell ! " 
I must have created the impression that I was on fire ! 

So, after all, my campaigning brought a little suc- 
cess, — an encouraging outlook for the future. Had 
I been receiving a liberal compensation for my ser- 



29 o CLASHING FACTIONS. 

vices, quite possibly my brother-workers might have 
felt less inclined to say genial words of encourage- 
ment or commendation. How we hate to acknowledge 
the supremacy of others in the same line of work that 
we are in ! There's a test for you ! 

How preachers will run down other preachers ; how 
doctors hate to acknowledge that others are better 
than they are; how one school or class will find the 
greatest fault with another— as the homeopath with the 
allopath ; and if you recover under either it is due more 
to nature than to anything they can do. 

How writers think others in their lines are of no 
account— like the story of Cobbett, who, when asked 
by some one what works he should read— or grammar, 
it may have been — replied his own works. 

So, when you ask if any one has covered the same 
ground I am on, or advanced a truth of greater use 
to humanity, you may be sure I will put up my hand 
and say, " Teacher, I've got the answer, ' No ! ' : 

EACH THE GREATEST. 

The same is true of the different great reforms : all 
are first ! The one here advocated is the greatest : A 
new Democracy! A practical recognition and exer- 
cise by the working people of their leadership of the 
body politic in obtaining every right that a civil gov- 
ernment should afford. Then comes the Socialist — 
with his lesser light,— who regards the one-taxer as a 



CO-OPERATE. 291 

crude economist, to put all his eggs in the one basket of 
taxes ; while the man of one-tax thinks the Socialist 
should broaden his outlook and recognize that all his 
wants and more, too, are covered by the magical wand 
of the one-tax. And neither has patience with any 
other great scheme. 

Your woman suffragists are sure you can never do 
anything, however good your financial arrangements 
may be, without their having the suffrage. The Pro- 
hibitionist will strike us dumb with figures that won't 
lie; while the religious teacher scorns all else as mere 
dross when compared to the majesty and glory of the 
conversion of the human soul. So each of the " four 
and twenty jarring sects " will have their way ; and 
" Yet the vote is attested true ; two hundred and sev- 
enty voting ' aye,' of two hundred and seventy-two." 

A GREAT SIFTER. 

It's the mighty popular vote, actual or silent, that 
decides ; popularity is the very instinct of reform, 'tis 
the test of civilization itself. 

Ever-advancing, it touches each page here writ with 
its golden scepter, and the spoils are mine, and " shouts 
of victory ! " Popularity has learned its power and 
never more imposes on the toddling few the reward it 
craves for itself. 

But, let us ask, where is popularity's great adver- 
tising agent, the orator ? 



2 9 2 TIME'S A JUDGE. 

Most of the learned people and learned writers, and 
learned papers and magazines, would probably say: 
Gone with 'ye towne halle meeting ' and the passing 
of the candlestick. 

But Time's happy fancy, leaning ever kindly to the 
side of the oppressed, reverses learning and ignorance, 
and allows us fearlessly to say, When oratory is dead 
the world will be also. 

What does the orator do but talk as if he meant 
what he says ? His effort is simply tremendous energy 
of thought and feeling made vocal. But wherefore 
the energy without the occasion? 

DOGMAS OF THE PAST. 

They say there are no orators in the churches. 
Surely not ; what do they want them for ? Nobody 
believes in the old-time doctrines that were felt to be 
so important three-quarters of a century ago, when 
religion was the topmost theme for orator or writer 
to devote his attention to; when a vast amount of 
energy was spent in proving the amount of heat in 
the fiery pit, and predestination or foreordination were 
themes of daily importance. 

And the lawyers ! where are the orators among 
them? Where is your Daniel Webster, your Choate, 
or Henry Clay? 

All gone, and their places filled — well, hardly filled 
— by a totally different class of men. What's the 



PATRICK HENRY. 293 

reason again? Why, the orator isn't wanted. Even 
Congress is appealed to to-day for business, not for 
talk — money talks there. 

It's business ability, not oratory, that a lawyer needs 
to-day. In politics no orators are needed, for the poli- 
tician is in politics for what there is in it, so genuine 
oratory is out of his line. 

Where away, then, is our orator? 

Of course we are sorry to acknowledge that the 
universities do not produce him ; but rather let us look 
for our Patrick Henrys ; and where are they ? Maybe 
we could have found them in a recent campaign. 

" Yes ? — you spoke then ? " 

" Yes, I spoke then, and a few thousand others." 

" Were they all orators ? " Wait, hear the story of 
our candidate : 

" THE GREAT COALITION." 

Papers against him, magazines against him, univer- 
sities against him, bankers against him, politicians 
against him, trusts against him. With keen discern- 
ment, and a generous unanimity " unparalleled in the 
annals of politics," the " leaders " stood valiantly on 
the side of the pocketbook. There was an exception 
here and there, but it was as a drop in the bucket. 

And yet the millions stood seven in favor to eight 
against — one in fifteen turned the other way and an- 
other man was in. Something must have happened. 



294 SEVEN MILLIONS WITHOUT A PRICE. 

The workingman, led by the nose by the papers ; 
easily bribed by the rich; cajoled by the politicians; 
intimidated in quiet but far-seeing ways by his em- 
ployer — of course we all know that he must have been 
hotly opposed to our side. 

So where was our vote? There's where it was. 

The workingman, the descendant of those poor, de- 
spised, ignorant fishermen of long ago, who neverthe- 
less moved the world ; these poorest, hardiest, most 
robbed, and most abused — they were never led by the 
nose in this world; and they never will be. 

CHORUS. 

The papers preached with all their venality, the pol- 
itician howled with all profanity, the rich talked with 
intensest scorn and pride of worth ; and wealth fairly 
jumped out of its boots to show how liberal and grand 
it was, until the poor man might have fairly cried his 
eyes out to think that he should have principle when 
the chance of a year if not a lifetime was open to him. 
His a principle that advances with the advancement 
of civilization : the martyr-spirit is perennial. 

Orators ! Thicker than hops ! 

Well, no ; hadn't we better draw a veil over that 
orator who stands for wealth and gets splendid pay 
for doing it? 

The fact is, there were orators, and plenty of them, 
orators when there was no pay for them, orators when 



" TIMES THAT TRIED MEN'S SOULS." 295 

they had to lose days' work and nights' sleep to do 
their duty — and that is what makes orators. These 
men felt they had a cause, and " they fought like brave 
men, long and well." 

And they almost won! But, to tell you the truth, 
the other side pulled a little too heavy, in spite of it 
all. But the workingmen, where were they? They 
were where they always were, on the right side, and 
where they always will be. And the orators, were 
where they will always be, springing from the people, 
and for the people forever. 

MEN ON FIRE. 

Why, in that election I heard workingmen, who at 
other times would carry the hod or use pick or hoe, 
make speeches that would have made a Parliamen- 
tarian turn green with envy. Whether you wanted 
figures or the noblest sentiment that roused one into 
a passion for the right, you could have had them both ; 
and so clear and plain that even a child might have 
understood. 

There are orators as there are men, but it may not 
always be that society will give them a reputation that 
extends to the antipodes. 

The man who rises out of oppression and has in him 
the manhood to help others, always has in him the 
real touch of the orator. And you agree with me, 
don't you ? 



296 BROOKLYN BRIDGE. 



XIV 



IF there is one thing more than another that the 
opponent of ideas, such as are advocated in this 
book, are glad to put forth, it is that the work- 
ingman's accomplishments are due to the directors of 
enterprises. 

A horse, they say, can pull a rock, but it takes 
brains to put that rock in the right place, so that we 
have a Brooklyn Bridge. 

That is true, and there is no use denying the truth 
in order to gain one's point — that would only weaken 
it. 

PYRAMIDS. 

No such prop for the workingman, standing on his 
own feet and supporting the rest of the world so far ; 
he's good for his own support for all time to come. 

He can stand alone. 

But you have built the Pyramids with your brains! 
Your brains go to work, and, high presto! up goes a 
Washington monument. Brains do it ! 

I sit here in my office, in my fine upholstered chair, 
and with my brains I am going to build a new and 



BRAINS. 297 

magnificent building; three hundred and fifty feet up 
it shall go above the sidewalk. 

Talk about the workingman! He merely works 
with his hands; but I, with my brains, shall build for 
the ages to look upon. 

I look out of the window, and I don't seem to see 
my grand building going up — unless it is in smoke ! 

Oh, of course, I must have the workingman do the 
bone-labor, but I shall furnish the brains. 

'"Callooh Callay!' He chortled in his joy." If 
brains build, how much more it must require to own ! 
— a million-dollar gift, and what brains go with it! 
But let that pass. 

As to our furnishing the brains of directorship: 
I don't claim that brains deserve nothing. Never! 
I believe in brains as much as you or any other man. 

MIND OF ITSELF. 

But I think it is well to remember that my brains, 
however fine they may be for a great man — after, 
don't forget, a large sale of this book, — or however 
ordinary for an unheard-of man — that my brains, sit- 
ting here as I am, won't ever in this world make the 
least impression toward chopping down that fine tree 
on the sidewalk : I try to keep that in mind. 

" But," says my friend, " I want that tree chopped 
down." 



298 NO MORE WANTS. 

You want it chopped down ? " Yes." 

Well, if you've the money, down it goes. 

" Yes ; and I want a fine house built, and I want it 
built to suit me, with a fine lake near by ; I want a 
house ' With seventeen rooms in its pensive glooms, 
where the burglar sleeps alone ! " 

" I want a library room on the ' sou', sou', by west ' 
corner ; I want ' books but few, some fifty score, for 
daily use and bound for wear ; ' I want, I want, I 
want. . ." 

Precisely ! W T ell, the workingman will supply all 
your wants. 

" Then he's the man for me, every time." 

Yes, but where's your brains? Let them supply 
your wants if they can do so much ; let your brains 
alone build your fine house for you. 

" Oh ! well, then, I suppose I may as well own that 
I am willing to exchange some of my mental bright- 
ness and acumen as a director for your working- 
man's labor." 

" There ; don't put up another chip till I look at my 
hand ! " Exchange ! " say you ? Pard, it ain't no 
name for it ! " Exchange ! Well, don't forget how 
much you owe the workingman for the privilege. 

Friend Brains, did it ever occur to you, as foreman, 
architect, or " boss," that the amount you receive above 
the people " under " you is wholly due to their believ- 



UNDER ORDERS. 299 

ing it to be right — and that belief is mostly borrowed 
from European worship of position? 

It's your luck, not your merit. Whole armies of 
men could do your work, had they the opportunity 
and experience. Why, Mr. Foreman, the working- 
man commands you by the concentrated thought of 
ten million minds acting in unison to do your part 
and to take your pay, and, verily, to think you are 
more important than your dictator ! 

You exchange! Heavens! if there's justice in this 
world, and I believe there is — sometimes — you will 
one of these days recognize who the workingman is. 
"ain't my business 

IMPORTANTER 'n HIS'n IS?" 

Aye, 'tis a topsy-turvy world when you, Mr. " Boss " 
should think yourself more important than the work- 
man with his trade, — the backbone of all productive 
industry, the very foundation of civilization itself. 
Dear me ! how can I even pity one so insignificant ! 
Your master, the workingman, alone is worthy of my 
attention ! 

Mr. Brains, you as a director ought to get down 
on your knees to the workingman, and thank him for 
his belief; thank him for commanding you to take 
fine wages — often no more than you earn, instead of 
commanding that you and he shall be fleeced together. 
You do good work, and should be properly paid for it, 



300 ALL'S MY SHARE. 

but when you would ask for much more than the 
workingman is entitled to, it's my private opinion the 
roof of the house is declaring that it doesn't care any- 
thing about the foundation, and thinks it ought to have 
all the credit. 

" But," says Brains, " with withering scorn," " do 
you expect me to work for the miserable pittance of 
ordinary people ? You fail to appreciate me, sir ! " 

Who are you? 

" I'll paralyze you with a word ! — I possess vast 
fortune ; I own houses, lands, stock, bonds, and " — 

Yes, you own, but I am talking about brains. 

And when you look for brains you will find that they 
would cry their eyes out with ecstasy of joy should 
they be compensated as the workingman ought to be. 

Brains are, above all else, cheated : look at the army 
of inventions — but an imitation article gets hold of the 
money. 

ALLY OF THE WORKINGMAN. 

Brains really are but a part of the workingman 
power, and he might as well be honest and claim them 
as pretty nearly all his own. 

The man of brains is on an exact footing with the 
workingman : he has no time to be learning how to 
fool the rest of his kind, as has the business man. 

But, hark'e ! right here ! Am I saying that the busi- 
ness man may not do good work? Not a bit of it. 



BUSINESS MAN. 301 

Am I saying that he may not kill himself with over- 
work and anxiety? Not in the least. Am I saying 
that he should not be properly paid for his work? 
No, no ! 

In so far, then, as he is a useful worker in society, 
he deserves fair pay ; in so far, then, as he but gets 
the best of others, he deserves pay; for he is a crea- 
tion of society. 

But in so far as the business man, however indus- 
trious, has an income far beyond the workingman, in 
so far is he the recipient of our self-imposed tribute to 
our worship of vast wealth ; and great is my fortune 
to send forth a mighty engine of truth to destroy our 
idolatry. 

But as to brains ! Some there are, who, using only 
brain labor in their occupation, delight in contending 
that all workers are workingmen, and would thus gain 
credit for hard work of the workingman while con- 
sidering themselves much above him. Sorry! But 
we can't allow such credit ! Besides, such, with a good 
salary, hardly need a boost to sit — as do those whom 
they emulate — on the workingman's shoulders and 
draw sustenance from his labor. 

INVENTORS. 

And yet, when we think of the matter properly, we 
have to acknowledge that a Howe, or a Goodyear, or a 
Whitney, or the obscure men who invented the Hoe 



3Q2 AGASSIZ. 

printing press, or a Columbus, all were poor, to say the 
least for them as belonging to the " working classes.'' 
And they were so poor that they would have been 
glad — why, words fail to express what such men would 
have felt — if they could only have done the work that 
God gave them natural gifts for, without being eter- 
nally denied the actual necessaries of a comfortable life. 
Our age is theirs, but less able men receive the benefits 
of their toil. 

Give brains what they should have; but before you 
do, you will find they would vote in " blocks of five/' 
or five thousand, for an increase of pay, so that they 
could have workingmen's wages. 

Just cast from your mind any idea that brains are 
rich. 

Agassiz said he hadn't time to make money. That's 
the talk of brains ; and the workingman says I have too 
much principle, so the brains of the world remain poor. 

" IN THE BRAVE DAYS OF OLD." 

And the triumphant in wealth say, " Hi, yi ! Ki, yi ! 
I am the brains of the world ! I have what you want, 
and so I must have brains ; " and, locking himself in his 
immense granary, he sleeps and snores in a perfect 
bliss of stupid repletion, dreaming of the times when 
his forefathers had brains — for they were workingmen. 

Of course there is work about brain-work, and it 
may be as hard work as to dig or to plow. But when 



YOUR CHOICE. 303 

you are fitted by mind and body either to dig or to 
write, I ask you, Do you think the great Lord Himself 
ever designed that more should be paid for the work in 
the one case than in the other? 

I am not writing to say thus and so is the law ; you 
can judge as well as I ; and I say : 

Here's brains on one side, and on the other is stone, 
unhewed, the native rock ; here's wood in the tree ; 
here's brick in the clay ; here's virgin land in the sod ; 
can you get one thing for use from any of them without 
both brains and labor? 

A CLOSE AFFINITY. 

Now, when you separate the two — if you can — 
where's your certainty that one earns vastly more than 
the other? 

Tell me that, if you can ! and as an old schoolteacher 
used to say, " By the eternal mud ! " you can't. 

" Oh ! " some one says, " supply and demand regu- 
late all that." Yes, from the recipient of a million un- 
earned down to the wages of ten thousand who earn it. 

Talk about supply and demand! an elegant notion 
for the poor man to beguile himself with while he com- 
mands the few to take from his pocket many a hard- 
earned billion. 

Supply and demand has its place, but its place is in 
the bottomless pit when it is made an excuse for the 
millionaire's winnings, as against the workingman's 



304 YET TO SOLVE. 

honest earnings. But tell me, if you can, what any man 
earns. Add to a man's wages his just share of that part 
of the receipts of other men which they do not earn, 
and what is the result ? 

Not yet, my friend. " There are more things in 
Heaven and earth than are dreamt of " in supply and 
demand. 

Someone may say, " In that time, when we have no 
such robbers as you speak of, supply and demand will 
perfectly regulate wages," but I am talking about the 
present times ; and who robs, if the rich only obey our 
orders ? 

My first three-months' teacher used to talk of labor 
what's an hour's labor worth? 

being measured as you would measure cloth — what fun 
to measure out a millionaire's wages, giving him all he 
earned ! Labor, he said, was a fact ; and there should 
be no dickering as to what men received. I expect it is 
a rock-bottom truth : the raising of a bushel of wheat 
requires a certain amount of labor ; and so does the 
building of a house ; and some day who knows but 
what we will know exactly what men earn. But to- 
day let us read as we run, that the rich man's winnings 
are the poor man's earnings. 

Why didn't we pay Grant or Lincoln a couple of 
hundred millions apiece, or else the pay of a private to 
test their patriotism? What was their salary but a 



" ONCE MORE TO THE BREACH." 305 



XV 



AND now, if the young man in the gallery will 
kindly turn on the light, we will have an- 
other view of life's shadows, glinting 
through the starlight of experience. 

And here we have a trade once more. What, an- 
other ? Yes ; we'll win the championship for experi- 
ence, know more of the world at thirty than some do at 
seventy-five. 

" Getting a little old to learn a trade, hey ? " 

SETTLED ON HIS OWN GROUNDS. 

Oh ! I don't know ! 

" Why, I'd think if you were ever going to get set- 
tled. . ." 

Yes, but suppose we're not settled, what then ? 

" Well, all I've to say, is, it must be fearfully dis- 
agreeable to learn a trade after you've grown up." 

Shake, my friend! you never spoke a truer word! 
But if, as a little side hint of a reason, we want to be 
one among others to spy out the land and help men to 
better conditions while striving for them oneself, what 
better than a trade for renewed experience? 
20 



3o6 A SLIDE. 

" Go down, Moses, way down in Egypt's land." 
Good advice ! Thanks ! Twas served up hot with 
necessity, so we pack our collar-box, as the printers 
say, — and go. 

First, however, we tarry on our old stamping- 
ground, a railroad town of some ten thousand inhab- 
itants ; that descent from the high-toned people to the 
ordinary workingman may be more pronounced and 
sharp ; for in that town it was the fortune of " our 
author " to be on genial speaking terms with nearly 
every man of prominence. 

It's all right! We're not complaining! We're not 
shaking our fist at the rich ! We're not hating any 
man. We see plenty of good in this world ; but 
wouldn't it be fun to have the rich all go and learn 
trades after they're grown up, and let the workingman 
do the bossing! 

"don't keep me waiting!" 

Every job would be in a hurry! Wouldn't we 
make them hustle, and do their work over again to 
please us! And such awkwardness, such ignorance! 
We would retire into the inner recesses of our private 
office and tumble over ourselves with laughter ! 

But there was no laugh in me when my first day's 
work was over! 

Standing all day at one job, and in one place, is a 
punishment when you are not used to it; and my 



A YOKE OF OXEN. 307 

boarding-place, a quarter of a mile away, was as good 
as ten; and for a week or two any other work looked 
pleasant in comparison. But I could stand a good deal 
rather than go back to a business that was Sherman's 
idea of war. 

I knew what it was to plow, to mow, to dig out a cel- 
lar all alone, eight by ten, and six feet deep, what it 
was to handle a road-scraper weighing two hundred 
pounds, and using it while working ten hours a day 
behind a pair of oxen, and thus scraping out a swamp 
to make a pond ; and I wasn't, therefore, going to turn 
to the right-about-face and surrender at once. 

But that first week or two almost " busthed " me, as 
they say in the country. 

TAKING MY DEGREE. 

A trade ! Oh ye men of trades, stop work, — and 
whole cities starve ! Oh ye powers, discharge foremen, 
superintendents, " bosses," — and not one day's work is 
lost ! Proudly was I winning the title of " Armature 
Winder.'' 

You've heard of a trolley! — every trolley-car has at 
least one armature under it, a sort of immense spool 
made of iron with wire wound round it or placed on it 
in various ways. 

In the " electric station " powerful engines turn im- 
mense armatures surrounded by large stationary mag- 
nets of wire and metal. From these " generators " the 



308 A MYSTERY. 

electric current passes along the trolley wire, and down 
the trolley pole to the armature, of which the axle is 
the centre. At once the armature becomes strongly 
magnetized, as well as the magnets closely surround- 
ing it, fastened, to car or truck, which, in effect, con- 
tinuously pull the armature round. 

I think I might mention two of the most curious 
facts about an armature : one is, that, when you run 
electricity through it, as on a trolley, it turns the 
wheels, and that if you put that same armature in the 
station and turn it by machinery, that is, by a belt 
round the axle, electricity is produced. 

Another fact that seemed most curious to me was 
that there is no friction used to produce the electricity ; 
the armature runs within a quarter of an inch, or 
much less, of the magnets that surround it ; but should 
they touch, all would burn out at once. 

ON EDGE. 

I had already made two attempts at electrical work. 
I " took a position " under one man at a few dollars 
per week. After our first few remarks he wanted to 
know if my first name was so and so, he having guessed 
at it from the initial letter. I told him it was. 

Then T asked him what his first name was ; Is it 
John ? said I, not knowing his initials ! 

" No, it's Richard," he said, " but call me Brown." 

Then call me X ! I said, mentioning my name. 



INDEPENDENCE COMES HIGH. 309 

That was our lovely beginning! I stayed with him 
three months, and my salary was increased somewhat ; 
but the outlook for good wages was too slim, so I 
quitted him. 

I started in again. This time with a friend. He was 
an under man, but expected to get me good wages. 

While at work during the first two or three days, a 
natty young fellow called and asked to see my friend, 
" Where is Jones ? " he said. 

" Mr. Jones," I said, emphasizing the mister, " is at 
such a place." 

Jones was up-stairs; the young fellow asked me to 
go for him, mentioning his own name, which I thought 
I had heard. I didn't hurry myself, I went up part- 
way, and called Jones. 

Afterward, my friend told me I must be careful; 
that was a head man. I got a dollar less than I had 
expected — one dollar off for independence ! 

BOSSES TO BURN! 

While working with my friend for another firm, a 
good many men seemed to come round to look at my 
work, which was somewhat worrisome. Once I was 
sent on an errand to headquarters. 

" What are you here for ? " said a spare-looking 
man, as he came in and saw me sitting down, waiting. 

I told him. Then, with all the force I could sum- 



3io PRACTISING FREEDOM. 

mon, I looked him right in the eye and said, " What 
might be your capacity in this concern ? " 

He flushed considerably, seemed a little flabber- 
gasted, and said, " Oh, I just walk round a little " — not 
a bad answer! 

Then the boy who was waiting on me, quietly said, 
" That's Mr. Brown, the vice-president ! " 

Well, here was a chance for removal ! So I said to 
Mr. Brown, somewhat apologetically, " There seems to 
be such a lot of bosses round that I just wanted to 
know who's who." He said that was all right. And I 
went on my way rejoicing. 

Once for this firm we strung overhead wires in a 
down-town shop where many forges were used ; the 
rafters, therefore, were black, and the dust an inch 
or so thick ; one came out of it looking like a black 
man, and no mistake. 

But as to our trade. Small pay to start on, and we 
were soon turned into a carpenter — not much elec- 
tricity about that. But, remember, I was starting, a 
man doing a boy's work, and getting a boy's considera- 
tion mostly, too; for men haven't much patience with 
the blunders of a beginner. 

NOT A FISH STORY. 

But mechanics were nearly as natural to me as water 
to a fish, and I made headway rapidly. And by stout 
" kicking " every now and then, I succeeded in get- 



INVENTS FOR OTHERS' PROFIT. 311 

ting in two years my wages raised to twice what I 
started with. Not so bad! but an increase four times 
over in eighteen months, as with a relative, leaves me 
out of sight. 

From carpenter-work I became a helper of armature 
winders, and took part in any miscellaneous work. 
One man whom I helped was probably as fine a winder 
as could be found anywhere; he had also invented a 
certain way of winding that saved about a third of the 
time on a certain class of large armatures. 

This probably meant thousands of dollars to the 
large firm he was with at the time, but not a cent did 
it mean to him ; in fact, when an armature that he had 
wound, burned out, they wanted him to rewind it on his 
own time. He told them he didn't make money that 
way ; then he left — his independent manner with men 
was a great source of delight to me. 

There were about a dozen men in the shop; and my 
friend with whom I had been previously associated in 
electrical work, was foreman. 

paradoxes. 

He was like most of us, merely because we are little 
known, and that only from the surface. On one side, 
he was generous to a fault, but he could " bite a leaf of 
tea in two " in a bargain ; and, likely as not, he'd turn 
round and make you a five-dollar present ! Fact ! 



312 THREAD-BARE WISDOM. 

One time this efficient armature-winder, getting his 
three dollars a day, wanted some stout, thin twine ; was 
roundly cursing the shop for furnishing such poor ma- 
terial. The foreman sends out for a skein or two of 
carpet thread. Well, that man was mad enough to 
chew the foreman right up. But he had sense, and 
kept his wrath inside : for such is the training of a good 
workman : the business man may afford the weakness 
of a bad temper, but 'tis a costly experiment to the 
workingman ! 

It seemed so absurd to keep that three-dollar-a-day 
man, who was doing fine work, and could easily lose 
them five or ten dollars in his delays from being mad 
at their meanness — absurd to keep him mad, that I got 
the commission to get twine. 

I purchased a beautiful ball of fine twine for a quar- 
ter of a dollar. I was afraid the foreman wouldn't 
stand the expense, but he did, and the country was 
saved ! 

EXPERT AT SOMETHING ELSE. 

I gradually became an expert in the winding of con- 
verters, — another branch of work ; but they had much 
of it to do; and when my friend was superseded by 
another foreman, I almost thought, with a little push- 
ing, I could have been foreman myself — what a lack 
of judgment on their part! No wonder they failed 
when I left! 



COMFORTABLE SAWDUST. 313 

I got along well with the men, even when I was 
placed in charge of the converters and looked after 
the others' work ; they were never hastened by me un- 
less there was a real need of it ; nagging of men wasn't 
in my line. But I always felt that if I had really been 
foreman I could have gotten more work out of the men 
in a pleasant way than the firm ever began to get. 

One thing : I would never have nearly frozen the men 
out in a barn-of-a-room with one big old stove in it ; 
I'd have had coal and heat enough if I had had to bar- 
ter my head for it. 

The firm was poor, but what policy is it to pay men 
three dollars a day and keep them so cold they can't 
half work, and so mad they won't half try ? I can now 
see one of the young men standing at work with his 
feet in a box of sawdust ! 

Work! Why, once when I had to do some work 
over on my own time, one of the young men helped me ; 
he and I were very friendly. On this occasion he put 
in a good two hours' work in one, just out of kind- 
ness. 

didn't get ten thousand a year. 

One day there came to the shop a man six-foot-one 
or two in height, spare of build ; calm, sedate in man- 
ner; you might have called him judge. If you had 
found him in the Supreme Court of the United States 
vou would have said, " There is a man." 



314 A WINDER'S STORY. 

He was, however, a member of a much higher court 
than that — the workingmen of America. 

For five years he had been on a certain class of arma- 
tures, till one would almost have thought he could have 
wound them with his eyes shut. The armatures were 
big fellows — like himself, and must have weighed a 
thousand pounds each. Day after day he would work 
upon them ; and every turn of the wire meant a turn of 
the armature ; so that it took him about a hundred and 
fifty hours, or a little more, to wind them. 

Now, it happened, as happen it will on an occasion, 
that there arrived a little later in our shop another 
man ; he was shorter, nervous in action, quick of man- 
ner, and, in his own mind, knew more in a moment 
than the tall man did in a month ! He was an all- 
around workman ; had been in shops and shops till 
what the bosses didn't know he could tell them; and 
he was not averse to telling them, either. 

BY THIS AND BY THAT. 

Small firms, as you may know, are pinched for 
money; pinched by their wages-bill; and can often 
give large firms pointers on paying small wages ! 

The shorter man thought he smelt a rat ! Couldn't 
he be foreman, especially as my friend was losing his 
grip and likely to leave? He'd put boys in to do men's 
work, and make lots of money for the firm. 



A QUIET CALCULATION. 315 

Another point ! Why not do the tall man's work ! — 
he's too slow altogether ! — then " he'd have full swing 
to try the thing, and practise a leetle on the " foreman- 
ship ! 

So he begins. Unknown were his intentions to the 
tall man. If known in part, or fully, to the firm, I 
know not, I having to judge by my hindsight rather 
than my foresight ! 

As he starts to work he sings his little song, chirrups 
happily, gets his instructions from the tall man, and 
chaffingly talks of getting through in one hundred and 
forty hours. 

He also receives a quarter a day more than his in- 
structor. Hence, to make it an object to the firm to 
have him do the armatures, he must surpass his teacher ! 



" STEADY BY JERKS/ 



Now those armatures were heavy, as the writer has 
said, and one had to bend one's back over them as one 
turned them. The tall man said, afterward, that he 
saw the other was working hard! 

But think of the kindness of the tall man! He 
gave the other man, in a friendly way, — as one work- 
ingman to another, — an amount of instruction that I 
felt would have been sufficient for me to wind the 
armature myself. 

Well, to conclude, the shorter man had indeed 



316 REWARDED. 

missed his calculations, and as he progressed nearly 
half way, it was evident that he would be about one 
week longer than his instructor. 

But here was the best part of the story: For some 
reason or other, he stopped work upon his armature. 
How it was found out, I don't know ; but he had 
actually wound it all wrong! Reversing the winding, 
he started on the wrong side, or something of that sort. 

At first he blamed the tall man, but none agreed to 
that — it was his own fault. Then he fairly danced and 
pranced round the armature to show the firm it would 
run just as well, anyhow. 

The tall man only remarked that if it were at the fac- 
tory, where it had been built, the wire would all be 
taken off and the armature rewound. 

Hard commons ! Finally he left, and sued the firm 
for a week's pay. But he lost his suit. And it served 
him right ! 






NIAGARA. 317 



XVI 



WHAT are you going to do about it ? " 
asked Tweed, chuckling to himself, as 
millionaires may chuckle to-day — those 
who are wise enough to know there is such a question 
about themselves. 

I can't answer that — that's the people's question. At 
Niagara, some one says, " Isn't it wonderful to see that 
tremendous body of water coming down over that im- 
mense precipice ? Yes, darling, but wouldn't it be still 
more wonderful to see. that same tremendous body of 
water going up that immense precipice ! " — as wonder- 
ful would it be for the millionaire to keep on forever 
making his millions. 

A PAST ERA. 

Do you think the people will bear oppression for- 
ever? Look at the French Revolution! Look at our 
own Revolutionary War! The Civil War! They but 
express the limit of an ever-increasing arrogance and 
determination to grasp more and more. 



18 PRESTO! CHANGE. 



We are entering the age in which this change shall be 
made ; the change from the monopoly of the few to the 
abundance of the many. 

Read the people, and see! Ask the first man you 
meet, and you will find him scholarly on the subjects in 
this book. Twenty-five or thirty years ago one would 
have been deemed a lunatic to write it. To-day a vast 
array of sensible people must see in its pages a reflec- 
tion of their own good taste and hard sense ! 

Hardly a laborer to-day but has some thought that he 
is making the rich people rich. Isn't it so? 

Twenty-five years ago you would scarcely find an 
honest man in the country, — as we have said before, — 
but who would think it was all his own fault he was 
poor. Isn't that true ? 

BLAZING THE WAY. 

And doesn't it all mean that the people are thinking? 
Where's the magazine, newspaper, or book even, that 
won't get in some word edgewise on these subjects? 

Every day, every hour, every minute finds people be- 
coming wiser in these matters. Legislation is begin- 
ning to feel the force of these questions ; and here and 
there we may see the first glimmering of the ousting of 
the politician-stripe of men. 

Aren't we marching on with rapid strides toward 
changes? Literally, do you think that tons upon tons 



AWAKENED! 319 

of enlightening literature are not opening people's 
eyes? — are having no effect? Or that the work that 
you and I and tens of thousands of others, working 
with souls on fire for the cause of justice and for right- 
eous conditions for the people, will have no effect ? 

Are not, then, our great concentrations of wealth — 
hardly heard of before the Civil War — becoming 
plainer and plainer object-lessons to the people? 

Is it likely that the cry of every reformer for just 
conditions for the working people, is but the sighing of 
the wind ? Do you think that the millions in our civil- 
ized nation, hearing that some things are out of joint, 
won't try to put them into place? — hearing the cry of 
the distressed, and knowing the cause, will do nothing? 

NOT PAGANS, NOR SAVAGES. 

Ours is a nation of thinking men and women ; not a 
people trodden under foot for centuries. And do you 
think that these many appeals shall not cause us to act ? 
As well argue that the world is flat, " the sun do move," 
or that men and women are not human. 

Take heart, ye that are weary and heavy-laden ; for 
better times — not in the sense of a new President or a 
new party — are coming, but better times in the sense 
that the millionaire can't take so much from the people, 
and the people therefore will have more nearly what 
they earn. 



320 THE TREND. 

Better times in the sense of fewer tramps, less pov- 
erty, less concentrated wealth, and just conditions ; bet- 
ter times in the sense of a higher estimate of work- 
ingmen and women as wages increase ; while the rich 
get less and see the wage-earner and themselves com- 
ing nearer together financially. 

And better times, also, in the sense of a better so- 
ciety, better and more even chances of education ; a 
society in which all its institutions partake of a far 
greater spirit of democracy, a greater interest in and a 
greater control by the people, through whose sufferance 
and support they exist. 

You can't very well stop the Mississippi, and you 
can't very well stop this steady march of the people to 
their own. 

THE BATTLE-AX. 

" Now, then, get your war-paint ready ! fill the knap- 
sack ! turn the plowshare into a sword ! Your book is 
nearly ended; maybe it will be popular. And then 
there's your chance to be colonel and general ! " 

Well, what for? Does the workingman see the 
golden dawn of his power only to lose it in weakness? 

War ! I am talking of gain, not of loss. 

War! Why, my friend, you are looking at me 
through your boots! 

I never said I was in favor of monarchy. Not I ; as 
straight as an arrow, I believe in independence. Have 



BURNS. 321 

you so entirely forgotten that " the rank is but the 
guinea's stamp," that you think the workingman wants 
to change bosses for generals, commodores, com- 
manders ? 

Why, my dear, unsophisticated companion, I am talk- 
ing about bringing a new world among us. I am talk- 
ing about happiness and better life and better surround- 
ings to life. 

I trust I am not talking nonsense. Should a giant 
stoop to kick a mouse ? The workingman is my theme. 
Does he need the club of war to overcome ? To over- 
come what? — one man in a hundred, let us say; one 
man in ten, let us say. 

You don't need to use a keg of dynamite to shoot off 
a fire-cracker ! The workingman fighting the rich ! 
He has more power in his little finger than the rich 
have in their whole body. The game is ours, my 
friend, sure as life is life; but let us move as fast as 
reasonable upon it. 

GREATEST LABOR UNION. 

Are we not organizing ? — seven millions of working 
men, organized, voting together in our last election, 
standing shoulder to shoulder. 

Are we not studying? Are we not seeing openings 
here and there toward our destination ? 

" Let slip the dogs of war " for the big-wigs of the 
21 



322 SHERMAN. 

world — war is the world's weakness, not its strength. 
And I fancy getting behind the enemy's works and 
viewing matters from the inside, if possible; so, when 
Sherman tells me, in his pleasant vernacular, that " war 
is hell ! " I am disposed to believe him. 

It does us no harm to remember that all the vice that 
we say we think is bad, — that is, say so in peace, — we 
allow, or can't help, in war: then we talk only of the 
patriotism of the soldier. 

If bad is bad, it is so in war as much as at any time. 

WAR PHILOSOPHY. 

In peace we say that murder is a terrible crime, and 
any little torture that may accompany it we never tire 
of condemning. But in war murder is just the thing, 
and each side that does any less than possible, is cer- 
tainly lacking in common sense. 

In peace torture is wrong, according to our general 
average thought ; but in war we must be prepared to see 
men's limbs scattered round everywhere, and men 
dying in every sort of agonizing shape, with the feeling 
also that a wounded man is better than a dead one, be- 
cause the enemy must take care of him. 

When we ponder these things, and reflect that not 
one in ten of the poor fellows that go to war ever think 
of the terrible suffering that, likely as not, they will 
go through, we can well imagine many a true-hearted 



HUMAN ADVANCEMENT. 323 

patriot, in the last agonies of life, feeling, if far too 
courageous to say it, " For God's sake what did I ever 
get into this misery for ? " 

When we try to comprehend the difference between 
talking about war and dying in war, it is then we see 
what a brutal disgrace war is to humanity. 

A thousand years of peace to one of battle is the hu- 
man record : battles last but hours, peace abides for 
years. In very truth, humanity must hate and despise 
warfare ; for it knows that advancement is but on lines 
of peace; that actual battle only degrades and brings 
us close to the lowest instincts of the brute creation. 

HUMAN DEGRADATION. 

You have my sentiments on war! Nevertheless, 
when once started upon war, must we not all say kill — 
kill to the last man if necessary? At any rate, whole- 
sale murder should go on relentlessly : to kill or be 
killed is the only logic of a battle. 

But words, I am sure, can never do justice to the 
actual horror of war. There is, however, another side 
of the question that should be dwelt upon for a moment 
strenuously, — the private soldier. 

When we think that the private has nothing to gain 
by war, and has all there is in life to lose; when we 
think that applause is his to a very small degree only ; 
that no special honors, no fine salary, little of the feel- 



324 UNTITLED NOBILITY. 

ing of grandeur that makes the commander's position 
so enviable, we marvel at his patriotism, his willingness 
to take the hazard of life. 

That there should be men of manly characteristics, 
of energy and will-power, men who, on the great aver- 
age, must feel a fair assurance of their own success — 
even though a modest one — at home; to know that 
there are armies of such men among us who lay down 
their lives for others is indeed one of the most remarka- 
ble facts connected with us human beings. 

Here we have right around us our neighbors and 
friends, — hosts of men, — who, at a drop of the hand- 
kerchief, will not only fight to save their own people, 
will not only fight to save their own country, but are 
perfectly willing to take their chances of life and death 
to help a neighbor that is in trouble — as many did. 

A GENEROUS WAR. 

To get rid of war would almost, indeed, be to attain 
the highest pinnacle of human accomplishment. But is 
it not one step higher to be able — as a mass of human- 
kind — to pass through the awful horror of war merely 
that another may gain the independence we fought so 
hard to win? 

No matter how you put it, or whether or not men ap- 
preciate the misery they are to plunge themselves into, 
we may well be transfixed with wonder at the sublime 
spectacle of unselfish magnanimity. 



MARTYRS. 325 

Patriotism, glory, a power that is god-like for good, 
thy name is The People : touch their heart-strings, and 
life is as nothing; under the Juggernaut-wheels of war 
they throw themselves as if it were but sport. 

Yet the stronger qualities of humanity, — to which the 
world owes its progress — love, kindness, sympathy — 
assert themselves even in war; and civilization is hor- 
rified at barbarities, once the delight of nations. 

Not to have war would be sublime, but for a great 
nation to throw its weight into the balance, where rec- 
ompense is impossible, where conquest is utterly un- 
cared for, where the hazard of battle must leave much 
to lose and nothing to win, where the friendship of 
other nations is to be endangered, — all this to help out 
of trouble a poor, little weak country, so overrun by 
war as to be more dead than alive, surely we are right 
in saying that such a war could have been undertaken 
only by a peaceful nation, and was a war to prevent 
wars. 

PEACEFUL REVOLUTION. 

Forasmuch as the soldier went back to the plow, after 
the Civil War, so now, again, has he returned to swell 
the mighty army that, inspired by modern intelligence, 
dictates that the achievements of justice must and shall 
be accomplished through peace. 

He, the hero of a bygone age, returns, the citizen of 
to-day, to usher in fearlessly a new civilization wherein 



26 GOD PITY THE WORLD. 



the workingman appreciates his power and knows how 
to use it. Are you not with me, thus, in seeing human 
progress and human nobility through the smoke of the 
cannon ? 

Why, I am sure thousands of men, taking steady aim, 
have said, " God help your soul " to even the poor, 
miserable Spaniard, plunging himself into a foolish, 
losing game. 

Many, many times have we seen that the nation's 
conscience is our own ! And it must be ! You and I 
are bound by its dictates. So, in slave-days we should 
have owned slaves ; in Roman days we should have 
owned white slaves ; and to-day men own the wealth 
that they have not earned. 

In like manner, to-day the soldier, whether he be- 
lieves in war or not, unflinchingly shoulders his gun — a 
patriot to the nation's command, to the hearts of the 
people. 

THE WAR OF WARS. 

But peace is the real war, character the real strength. 
Would you not say that it is a thousand times easier 
for men to be brave on some one great occasion than to 
show the unflinching spirit of self-command in the 
ordinary events of our daily life? 

" Billy, the Norman, was a very great war-man ! " 
Yes ; but while at war the people at home had to do the 



THE SAPLING GROWN TO A TREE. 327 

hard work of supporting him, and they didn't have the 
glory of the soldier for having done their part, either. 

Yet, Billy at war never has moved the world as Billy 
at peace has done. Do you think that the killing of 
men has ever, or can ever, equal their just and honor- 
able support? 

War is passion let loose ; peace places passion under 
control. Is there any doubt as to which is the most 
courageous, which manifests the most power ? 

From the fighting tribe, to the brotherly nation; 
from slavery, to freedom; from war, to peace is the 
record of progress. " But," says a commentator, " the 
workingman has led all the wars of all times." 

Yes ; but the workingman then was a weakling com- 
pared to what he is to-day. His human nature may not 
have changed much, but his knowledge and apprehen- 
sion of his part in civilization has changed vastly. 

Haven't we seen the printing-press, the iron horse, 
and electricity, all in a brief seventy-five years ? 

THE WORLD HIS AUDIENCE. 

One word said by a man of importance may to-mor- 
row morning go into a million homes ; the newspaper, 
the magazine, the weekly — what are they but avenues 
carrying knowledge and strength to the working peo- 
ple? 

The ear of a man a thousand miles away is to-day as 



328 INVINCIBLE AS ALEXANDER. 

close as was that of his next-door neighbor a hundred 
years ago, or his adjoining neighbor of to-day. 

War ! As well scare a mountain with a shadow ! 
We have armies and armies peaceably banded together 
over all this land ; and each army, like the strands of a 
cobweb, holds its members together, however far 
apart. Organizations and organizations, whether a 
million members or ten, and a cry from " central," is 
heard in every ear ; none so far away but the words are 
hardly out of the lips of a popular man than they are 
repeated in the most remote corners and crannies of 
the nation. 

An army! Ten thousand men, a hundred thousand 
men, a million men, fifty million men will lay their 
votes upon the table to-morrow morning at breakfast 
if convinced; and, in the twinkling of an eye, the gov- 
ernment is changed, and not so much as one drop of 
blood is shed! 

The rich will give up their millions as babies give 
up their toys, — if we but say so! Don't laugh! Let 
these statements sound as they will, they are the truth 
only. But not a cent, not a mill, would we ever take 
from the millionaire that he justly has. 

TEMPERATE DEMAND. 

No, with the magnanimity of a Qesar marching into 
conquered Rome, or a Grant at the enemy's final sur- 



WHEN. 329 

render, shall the workingman not demand one single 
red cent that the millionaire can show a righteous claim 
to; but place the bars of God's eternal justice against 
his opportunities to obtain more millions in any way 
whatsoever. 

A few brief years will pass swiftly, and all this 
mighty array of organized humankind will have a clear 
understanding of the most practical method of reaching 
such ideas and factors, for the good of us all, as I have 
upheld, with vigorous effort, in this book. Then the 
dream of many a martyr will be answered ; then the 
workingman will begin to live in a new world. When 
millionaires are few compared with now ; when a tramp 
is so scarce he is welcomed as a traveler ; when paupers 
are almost unknown ; when tenements are things of the 
past ; when men who aim for millions will be looked 
upon as lunatics — then won't it be a new world ? such 
changes are as measurably sure to take place as that 
men will live, and that changes take place at all. 

When an honest worker need no more fear gaining a 
comfortable livelihood than he did in the earlier and 
ruder days of our country's history ; when no man need 
be debarred from getting married because he can't sup- 
port a family and own his own home — 

THEN. 

Then, I ask you, will such changes be any greater, 
any more marked, than the mechanical changes that the 



330 MAP THE FUTURE. 

workingman has produced in the last seventy-five 
years, as compared with the seventy-five thousand years 
before ? 

But yesterday we were almost as old as Egypt. To- 
day we have a new world, compared to that of our fore- 
fathers ; to-morrow we shall have the good of that new 
world. And not a small slice of those years of to-mor- 
row have already been taken up in education, experi- 
ence, and in learning who we are, what we are, and 
how practically, justly, and peaceably to aim toward 
these better conditions. 

" But," say you, " what is your plan? " 

Say, before it began, what was the plan of the Civil 
War ! Tell us the plan of the next century ! 

Let the prophets of old tell us about this century, 
with lightning chained to a car, with the vote of any 
man as good as that of a king, with black stone dug 
from the earth as fuel, with the steam that comes from 
the boiling kettle harnessed in the iron horse. 

BEFORE THE BEGINNING. 

Tell me these things before they happened, and I will 
tell you the plan of the mighty changes to take place, 
both for your benefit and mine, as well as for the bene- 
fit of those to come after us, and of the nations of the 
world. 

Already the plans are in the hands of the Great De- 



NOTES OF FUTURITY. 331 

signer, and though we sometimes complain that He 
works a little slowly, yet probably He moves as fast as 
the materials He has to work with will allow; and it 
behooves the mortal man not immodestly to predict 
what the morrow shall bring forth. 

Yet every man discerns something of the future 
through the events of to-day, and is a discoverer by 
each new experience. Typical of his discovery is the 
life of each discoverer! Practically experiencing the 
great movements of his time, the investigator must 
discover; and, launching forth some thunderbolt of 
truth, prepare for summer showers, of genial words 
and kindly plaudits, of an ever-increasing army of 
friends and compatriots. 

" Afar in the desert I love to ride with the silent 
bush-boy alone by my side." And that bush-boy, am- 
bling along by the side of the great man, thinking him- 
self to be utterly worthless as compared to the great 
man, I take as a type of the majestic worth and power 
and greatness of humankind. 

MASTER OF HIMSELF. 

Alone, unheard of, out of the line of civilization, 
poor, the servant of all, the master of none, destitute, 
worthless, trodden under foot — and yet, " rock-ribbed 
and ancient as the sun," is he the strength, the fortress, 
the hope of the human race. 



Z$2 HIS MOTHER-WIT. 

Obscure, " unknown, by the wayside on a mossy 
stone ; there he sat, buckled knee and shoe and broad- 
brimmed hat." Yes, and there is this book, awakening, 
let us hope, echoes in the human heart, which, rebound- 
ing, back and forth, shall on fame's high pinnacle land 
me free! 

I did it with my little hatchet ! I wrote the book ; 
and near " and far, from cliff and scar " — poetry is 
plentiful at this end of the book ! — shall my praises be 
sounded. 

My praises ! Mine ? My deserts ? Oh, no, my 
friend. I never should have come to the end of this 
task without the aid of my mother. 

Ah no ; never would I have begun it. For her sym- 
pathy has ever sustained my attempts in the writing 
line ; and suggestions that she has given have kept out 
of this book its — finest jokes ! 

You won't cheer her if the work is a success ; and 
that is the last point I am getting at. 

DIOGENES. 

We will close this chapter by saying that when you 
are looking round the world and want to find a man 
who is earning his fifty-thousand a year, I can direct 
you so you won't have anything like the trouble Dio- 
genes had to find an honest man. 

Let me take you by the hand, for the way is dark, and 



THE COURAGE OE LIFE. 333 

the stairs are a little creaky, and the hall has no gas 
in it ; they forgot the " modern improvements ! " 

Up we go, and still up ; it's quite a climb, and I am 
afraid the odors are not the sweetest in the world ! 

However, here we are at the top of this miserable 
six-story tenement ; and there you have your fifty-thou- 
sand a year man — oh, I beg pardon! There are 
no fifty-thousand a year men to be found ; but there is 
humanity's noblest, a woman — poor, I wouldn't say 
forlorn, because the angels are never forlorn. 

There she is, " plying her needle and thread ; " the 
room is dark, and two or three little children are 
around, but she kisses one as it comes up to her, and 
resolutely keeps to the duty before her. 

And when the Great God of the Universe shall call 
the roll of humanity, we shall find that the only true 
and the always invincible masters of humankind, have 
been the unknown, the noble, and the ever-sacrificing 
women. 

THE COST OF A TRIUMPH. 

And so we shall send our book out on its triumphal 
march with the people to victory ! It has cost one year 
in the writing, two generations in the preparation, one 
year in which to find that publishers and great men 
would take no stock in it, and two years in which to 
learn a trade that it might be placed in the hands of the 
reader. 



334 AND JOSEPH DREAMED A DREAM. 

Born of the fire of necessity, reared in a fierce strug- 
gle of circumstances, it lives with the force of a mighty 
truth, to sound the note of peace of the ages, as mil- 
lions of workingmen's homes shall show the melting 
of idolatrous wealth into Christian plenty. 

And while the energies of an overpowering army are 
being steadily turned toward justice for all, and not 
chances for the few, toward splendid wages, and not 
unearned fortunes, we feel, with the working man, the 
blood of a conqueror running through our veins; our 
day is at hand; we are standing on the brink of the 
grandest achievement of all civilization. 



CHANCES. 335 



XVII 



THE cobbler at his shoes, the carpenter at his 
bench, the mason with his trowel — all have 
equal chances with the rest of the world 
to get rich," say the rich. 

''Who arc your rich men? Did they have chances 
carved out of some special timber? Did they dodge 
the dollars, to start with ? Were they born in a dream- 
land, where gold was picked up by the handfuls ? " 
say the rich. 

POOR AS POVERTY. 

" Who started as an engineer, or in some other occu- 
pation probably much-less paying, and now absorbs 
fifteen millions a year? It is only history that one of 
these great knights of the dollar started with mouse- 
traps, another with a peanut-stand, another — well their 
names are many, if not legion " — argue the rich. 

And the real legion ! Ask them ! Why, every man 
from sixty, downward or upward, can tell you of 
chances — no end of them — he has missed. Who hasn't 
missed some? 



336 ON TO VICTORY! 

Maybe the reason we think chances are really equal 
is because hope springs eternal in the human breast. 
There is no obstacle to childhood's vision of the future ; 
and the self-reliant youth has no fear — the world shall 
tremble at his feet. 

The human soul feels its strength, its equality, its 
endless power, and, so fearing naught, and examining 
little, each and all determine for the billion-dollar line. 

In the early days, our forefathers pushed forth ; 
every individual determined on his soul's salvation and 
his own temporal prosperity; sure of the final victory, 
regardless of others, defiant, intolerant, indomitable — 
on they rushed! 

HAD WE BEEN THERE. 

But forgetting to help us of to-day, they made mis- 
takes for to-morrow, and we reap the benefit of their 
beginnings. And lucky for us if we can bequeath as 
much of good and as little of bad to posterity. 

Chances being equal, they voted and let the govern- 
ment march on, — to do much as it pleased. And that's 
what the government did do ; for governments, at their 
best, are haughty, vainglorious creatures, striving dili- 
gently to forget their own family. 

But alas for the equality of chances ! When the indi- 
vidual had grasped his own chances and secured van- 
tage-ground, he " stayed not for brake and he stopped 



LOG-ROLLING. 337 

not for stone " till a good clearance was made of every- 
body else's chances. 

Let us see how it has been done; how this individ- 
ual working for himself has spoiled all your chances 
and mine — all in a quiet, sensible, thoroughgoing way, 
and without " putting on airs." Instructed, coddled, 
and worshiped by you and by me, he felt he was doing- 
God's service whenever he got a chance to destroy our 
chances, root and branch. 

The Standard Oil ! How its competitors must love it 
for standing by their equal chances ! How our good 
laws — your work and mine — have throttled its growth ! 
The good Standard Oil would say that chances are 
equal, even though we destroy them ! 

LIBRARIES VERSUS HOMES. 

One dollar off my chances for comfort and plenty — 
that's it exactly ! — every time I give alms for the sup- 
port of the gentleman whom we pay fifteen millions a 
year to. 

Let me say — and I do so with due pride, as the head 
of a large, flourishing family, though less than thir- 
teen, the number of my grandfather's family — that one 
dollar is my proportion for libraries, rather than for 
shoes and stockings. 

So that's my share of fifteen millions ; but for how 
many more dollars are you and I responsible for train- 
22 



338 EVEN THE BROADWAY TUNNEL. 

ing the rich to take from us? However, when we, 
through the President, appointed a fair Board of Arbi- 
tration in the coal strike, we gave the rich a first lesson 
in equal chances to all men — of which more anon ! 

Chances ! Look at our railroad franchises ! — tossed 
into the hands of the rich, as if not worth a cent — so 
many chances gone for the rest of us. 

Fact is, our great seventy-five-million human-soul 
machine has been grinding chances while concentrating 
and gaining great power of production ; getting horri- 
bly clogged, however, in the distribution. 

The concentrator must distribute. 

That's not much to do. Canal-boats, relays of horses, 
sickles to cut grass, wood-stoves, candles, hand-print- 
ing presses, and not a business sky-scraper in sight for 
years to come. 

READ THAT PAGE. 

That was the story of seventy-five years ago. And 
now — now what do we see ! Where are your thirteen 
hearty sicklers led by old Jake Holtsbury ! Inside out, 
outside in, wrong end to, and up-side down — that's 
what seventy-five years have done. 

The machine has concentrated, produced, swirled 
away the chances of the many, and compelled the few 
to take them ; emptied its wealth into the lap of wealth 
and luxury, a blinding storm of gold and diamonds for 
the few ; and for you and me ? 



HIS CENSURE GENUINE FLATTERY. 339 

The concentrator shall distribute, if we but say the 
word. Softly there ! — it may do harm to let the people 
know how strong they are — says a critic of my book. 

That's exactly what we are learning, else we couldn't 
make any great changes, our chances being gobbled up 
by trust after trust ; even the poor dumb beasts drag- 
ging over-crowded horse-cars can give us lessons in 
independence. 

But we, the people, having ground our own chances, 
and, at the same time, having ground-out millionaire 
monarchs, we may also have been building one mighty 
chance to grapple with these monarchs. 

That's the one chance of our uniting in a hearty dis- 
belief in millionairedom ; when rational chances will 
follow our commands. 

FULL-WALLET PREDICTIONS. 

" No chance for such a change " — says business : the 
latter-day fine-art deceit. 

" Said Chance for said change — as hereinbefore men- 
tioned — is, and by these presents we do most solemnly 
declare it to be null and void " — says law : that fine- 
art of saying what you didn't mean to say — a la Til- 
den's will. 

The nation is fast dividing into large armies of peo- 
ple, disciplined by labor, educated to modern thought, 
invigorated by a true sense of their power, and inspired 
with a national fellow-feeling. 



34Q NATIONAL SYMPATHIES UNITED. 

We have an estimate of citizenship, a kinship, a com- 
mon every-day interest with those thousands of miles 
away from us, which are possible only by telephone, 
telegraph, and million-circulation newspaper. 

The trust-armies must inevitably grow in unison, in 
order finally to take the trust machine, renovate it, and 
make it justly distribute its coal and wood and iron and 
grain, instead of turning away the chances of each and 
all of us for a fair share of God's bounty. 

But the trust has a noble side : the side that leads us 
out of barbarism, out of little, petty warring factions, 
into grand movements of humanity ; people united in 
mighty industries, working with wisdom and ability 
and without the criss-crossing of plans, purposes, and 
traffic that must mean an unlimited amount of waste. 

AS THEY ARE. 

The Morgans, Rockefellers, Vanderbilts, or Carne- 
gies are but flies on the back of an elephant. The 
mighty movement of the people shall sweep along as 
resistless as the tides, neither stayed nor pushed for- 
ward by these dazzling kings. 

The one chance — the mighty union of the people for 
equal chances, great industrial armies with a purpose, a 
sentiment of freedom, a determination to stand for a 
fairer equality of chances than ever before — what are 
these but signs easily read to-day. 



A GREAT EDUCATOR. 341 

The Trust we read, we see, we know. We know its 
brilliant wickedness, its industrial power, its marvelous 
excellence as a machine. But it lacks the most essential 
quality of business, — secrecy. It stands forth in the 
broad sunlight of a reading world. It can't be hid, it 
is too large. 

What it makes, what it loses, how it makes its money, 
who receives its golden tribute, and how much, are not 
facts to be groped after in the dark, but are eagerly 
presented to all by the great followers of public opin- 
ion — the newspapers. 

" THEY TOWED IT NORTH IN THE NIGHT-TIME." 

If you want to perpetuate a wrong, keep it a secret : 
a broad, frank, open expression it abhors ; that is its 
worst poison. And therein are business men wise : 
they take much that they don't earn ; with their quiet 
talks, closed inner offices, especially-subdued communi- 
cation of important facts. 

Throw the sunlight of truth upon this huge octopus 
as it takes from our pockets what it wants, and we learn 
both its power and its weakness ; and this is but learn- 
ing our own power. 

Millions of men turn billions of dollars into the 
hands of a few that little less than despise them, and 
that, in turn, are little less than hated. 

But others whose pockets are not lined with un- 



342 NOT A SPEAKING ACQUAINTANCE. 

earned dollars, and who are sounding the tocsin of a 
new democracy, stand face to face with the few men 
of gold. One side for the trust, the other for labor ; one 
side respected, loved ; the other, disliked, feared ; one 
devoted to a mighty cause, the other, to filling its own 
pockets. 

TOO DIFFICULT FOR THE SUPREME COURT. 

Who, at last, must hold the key of power ? 

Each year must add skill to the confederation of la- 
bor and to all allied forces and movements ; each year 
educates us all up to a final united desire of choice. 

Then, as with all great questions, the workingman 
shall prove its final and wisest arbiter. 

The fight for equal chances will go on until army 
after army unites under one banner, when trust and 
telephone, telegraph and printing-press shall prove a 
true friend to those who have made them. And they, 
of course, must be the billionaires watching the Hudson 
from the turrets of their castle homes ! Labor pitted 
against luxury must win; captured chances must make 
the capturer captive. Ah ha ! 

History but repeats itself: for freedom is eternal. 
When in its stoutest fortress aristocracy has reached 
its haughtiest period of indifference, it is nearly ready 
to fall. The over-gorged trust may at first be guided 
by wise councils ; but soon it must over-reach itself : 



"VAULTING AMBITION," ETC. 343 

for wisdom is not of luxury, nor is strength of over- 
indulgence. 

Principle and patriotism, stern endurance, and 
strength of character will be forced to the front by the 
people as naturally as they have forced the millionaire 
and politician to the front. 

WANTED A SMALL BUT WELL-TRAINED ARMY ! 

A new religion shall vindicate the people! — the gos- 
pel of equal chances for all men. Already it is sweep- 
ing over the nations of the earth ; and it shall conquer ! 

We hear it rumbling in far-off Russia ; it is rousing 
to action in Germany ; it is waiting with " baited 
breath " in England ; and little New Zealand rejoices 
in it ; while the United States, high in the pride of its 
short life, linked to immense power, finds in it the word 
of an ancestry, martyrs to human freedom. 

A twentieth-century army ! a twentieth-century cru- 
sade ! an army of orators fearless for the truth ; an army 
to bind the nation together, to remove oppression, and 
to unite us all in one common cause for the good of all 
men. 

An army of progress, of intelligence, dispelling for- 
ever the despairing ignorance of the assassin, whose 
act shows the worshiper of President or King and the 
despiser of labor; and brushing away, in the golden 
dawn of a new and inspiring hope of equal chances, the 
age-worn belief in position. 



344 SHALL WE START THIS CRUSADE? 

Marching from Maine to California, reaching every 
village, hamlet, city — a personal appeal to rouse the 
God-given principles of liberty and love of justice. 

Such an army, such men, such fire from Heaven 
must win more victories than sword or cannon or rifle, 
till — with a Yorktown or an Appomattox — is surren- 
dered a new nation to a new people. 

The workingman is already a conqueror ; he has pro- 
duced our inventive age ; he has banished slavery ; he 
has produced the millionaire, whom he both leads and 
supports ; and our civilization and freedom is of his 
making. What more? 

To banish poverty, to let the upper-crust of society 
earn its own bread-and-butter, instead of resting on his 
shoulders, little more is needed than that the working- 
man should know much better than our so-called rulers 
how to run a government. 

And this little lesson we are all learning — from the 
President — an insignificant factor of the government — 
to the combined hosts in all the trades, whose power 
always rules, because we are learning the power and 
importance of the workingman. And to make that 
knowledge practical we simply need to place in office 
men who believe in, who sympathize with, and are of 
the working people ; not office-seeking politicians, but 
men who can say with Lincoln, " With malice toward 
none and charity for all," and mean what they say. 






A GOVERNMENT OF THE PEOPLE. 345 

Whole armies of just such earnest, honest men are 
in our nation. And the time is not far distant when 
the workingman shall cease to run the government to 
his disadvantage, but shall — for the first time in the 
history of the world — be vindicated in his rights as a 
man, and have a government whose last desire, instead 
of the first, is to help the powerful and rich. 



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THE SEA BEGGARS. Liberators of Holland from the Yoke of 
^ Spain. Dingman Versteeg, 8vo, ornamental cloth, 339 
w pages $1.50 

One of the most brilliant and dramatic periods of Dutch his- 
tory, from 1568 to 1576, introducing the wars of that time. The 
final act in the glorious campaign of the "Sea Beggars," that 
sturdy band of patriotic exiles, laid the foundations of Dutch lib- 
erty. Mr. Versteeg has given the result of long, careful study of 
an epoch in history that has never before received the justice it 
deserves. He tells a fascinating story of stirring events in a most 
interesting way. 

GOSPEL OF THE STARS. James Htngston, " Gabriel." 
^ Introduction by Rev. George H. Hepworth, D. D. 8vo, 

" ornamented cloth, 194 pages $1.00 

A complete guide to divination by the study of the stars. This 
volume is a defence of astrology, a history, and a practical text- 
book all in one. It is written by a recognized authority on the 
subject. 

THE END OF THE AGES. With Forecasts of the Approaching 

Political, Social and Religious Reconstruction of America 

j| and the World. By William Fishbough. Frontispiece 

portrait of Author. Cloth, 8vo, 392 pages $1.50 

The author's discovery is that the progress of events in history 
are in obedience to a clearly defined law, and that in any nation 
these "cycles" can be traced, and that then the past will be better 
comprehended, the present be fully understood, and the future be 
predicted. 

THE KINGSHIP OF SELF-CONTROL. By William George 

Jordan. Originally published as leading editorials in 

(# *' The Saturday Evening Post/' of Philadelphia, when 

the author was its editor. Omamer ted boards 30 

Eight inspiring essays — bright, sympathetic, witty and novel in 
treatment. It can be read in an hour, but will supply thought for 
a lifetime. Just the book to have at your side when the worry 
and trials of life weary you. 
FREE BANKING* A NATURAL RIGHT. James A. B. 

£ Dilworth. 12mo, cloh, 212 page* $1.00 

This book proposes monetary methods founded on the Golden 
Rule-^— just to all and unjust to none. A practical remedy by a 
prominent business man. 



NOVELS WELL WORTH READING 

A ROYAL ENCHANTRESS. The Romance of the Last Queen 
of the Berbers. Judge Leo Charles Dessar, with twelve 
£ fine full-page illustrations, by B. Martin Justice. Orna- 
mented cloth, 8vo, 3 1 pages $1.50 

A new field in fiction. The story of the wonderful civilization 
of Northern Africa at the close of the seventh century. The hero- 
ine was beautiful as Cleopatra, wise as Aspasia, brave as Boadicea, 
and she performed wonders that gave her the name of The Sur- 
coress Queen. 

MR. DE LACY'S DOUBLE. Francis Eugene Storfce. Oma- 

}• mcnted cloth, 8vo, gold top, 306 pages $ 1 .25 

A story along unusual lines. It is a happy blending of romance 
and mystery, with many metaphysic and ethical problems. The 
scenes are laid chiefly in New York and in the Mississippi Valley, 
much of the action, in fact, happening on board a Mississippi river 
steamboat. 

DRUMSTICKS. Katherine Mary Cheever Meredith (Johanna 
A Staats). ** The Story of a Sinner and a Child." 1 2mo, 

w gold top, 192 pages, cloth $1.00 

"The conception of the tale is melodramatic, with a good deal of 
what is called 'passion' in it, in a literary way." Strong, and in- 
tensely interesting. The story has many striking situations. 

MEMOIRS OF A LITTLE GIRL. Winnifrcd Johnes. Inter- 
£ ests young and old alike. 16" mo, silver top, ornamented 
w cloth, 255 pages 75 

"Delightfully bright and refreshing. The author does humor- 
ously and sympathetically for girl-life what Mark Twain did for 
boy-life in 'Tom Sawyer. Never before was so much fun packed 
in so small a space." 

LYDDY: A TALE OF THE OLD SOUTH. Eugenia Jones 

Jt Bacon. 8 vo, gold top, ornamented cloth, 287 pages .... $1.25 
In this book negro characters figure as hero and heroine in ro- 
mance. The author's character-drawing of life on a Georgian 
plantation is wonderfully true, with just enough Southern dialect 
to give it realistic flavor. 

THE RAINBOW OF GOLD. Joseph A. Altsheler, author of 
j* '* The Soldiers of Manhattan," etc., etc. 8vo, orna- 

w mented cloth, 228 pages $J.OO 

A vivid and thrilling description of adventures encountered on 

the Great Plains of America by a party of gold hunters in the days 

of '49. The story abounds in dramatic situations, daring deeds 

and miraculous escapes. 

THE HIDDEN MINE. Joseph A. Altsheler, author of " The 
^ Rainbow of Gold," etc. 8vo, ornamented cloth, 273 
w pages $1.00 

In this book is told how the adventurers of "The Rainbow of 
Gold" found their treasure, and their struggles with freebooters to 
keep it. It is a fascinating story of experiences on the frontier 
some fifty years ago. 

BOSS : THE HONOR OF A SOUTHERN WOMAN. Odette 

(I Tyler. 12mo, gold top, cloth, 215 pages $1.00 

"Every page is redolent with the picturesque South, and every 
incident and character is portrayed with a skill and vigor too often 
missing in more pretentious works of fiction." It is the thrilling 
story of a woman who told the truth, — of an alibi that saved one 
life and cost two lives. 



THE DOOMSWOMAN: AN HISTORICAL ROMANCE OF 
^ OLD CALIFORNIA. Gertrude Atherton. With por- 

trait of the author. Guld stamped red cloth, 8vo t 264 pages. $1.25 
i " 'The Doomswoman' is an immensely clever book, and there 
are pages in it that deserve to live as being some of the ablest con- 
tributions to the literature of the human emotions which the Eng- 
lish language contains." 

FOR TH£ HONOR OF A CHILD. Beulah Downey Hanks. 

it j6mo, silver top, ornamented cloth, 2 19 pages 75 

"A story of dramatic fervor and of great emotional power. 
Rich in word-painting, clear characterizations, and complex situa- 
tions. It has also a masterly development and a 'go' that is irre- 
sistible. The story is admirable." 

DEAREST. Mrs. Forrester, author of " Diana Carew,""Of the 

$ World Worldly/' etc. J 2mo, cloth, 376 pages $1.25 

A charming tale of English life and romance, one somewhat 
after the style of "Jane Eyre." It is a love-story, pure and 
simple. 

*' 'How to Succeed Without Beauty,' would be a good title for 
this book." 

MISSING: A TALE OF THE SARGASSO SEA. Julius 

A Chambers. 8 vo, cloth, 1 82 pages .75 

"What Rider Haggard has done for Zululand and Anthony 
Hope for the mythical kingdom of Zenda, Julius Chambers does 
for that vast unexplored region in the Mid-Atlantic known as the 
Sargasso Sea." 

ENTERTAINING SHORT STORIES 

LO-TO-KAH. A Collection of Indian Stories. Verner Z. Reed. 
^ Beautifully illustrated by L. Maynard Dixon and Charles 

19 Craig. 1 2mo, gold top, ornamented cloth, 230 pages $ 1 .00 

"A book of real life among real Indians, in the reading of which 
one can become so interested as to be utterly oblivious to all sur- 
roundings." 

TALES OF THE SUN-LAND. Verner Z. Reed. 20 full 
^ page illustrations bv L. Maynard Dixon. 8vo, gold top, 

w ornamented cloth, 250 pages $1.25 

Eight romantic, imaginative tales of the Indians of the South- 
west. Filled with wild adventures, accounts of love-making, wars, 
and superstitions. 

HER LITTLE SISTER POLLY. Ella Florence Padon. Illus- 
A trations by C. D. Williams. Ornamented cloth, 8vo, 75 
9 pages 50 

The humorous story of the life and adventures of a rich little 
girl whose dearest possession was a mischievous parrot. In her 
visits to each of her four aunts the parrot played an important 
part in the daily events, much to the annoyance of the relatives. 
"Her Sister Polly" is one of the most delightful child-stories writ- 
ten for years. 

SHE OF THE WEST. Twelve Short Stories. Bailey Millard. 

fi 8vo, ornamented cloth, 264 pages $1.00 

Pretty bandits, successful girl reporters, Mormon girls, cow- 
girls, the woman's loneliness, her days upon the great plains, the 
awfulness of desert life, are but a few of the subjects and condi- 
tions treated. 

A DA.UGHTER OF NEPTUNE. Five short stories. William 

it Winslow. 16mo, silver top, ornamented cloth, 229 pages. .75 
Out-of-door stories, redolent of the atmosphere of the sea and 
the pines, where the human pulse beats free of Society's conven- 
tions. An unusually strong collection of stories, with the fresh- 
ness and crispness of Bret Harte. 



JAN 23 1906 



L-ci M*. 



